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Winston Churchill's identification document as an Honorary Citizen of the United States
A non-United States citizen of exceptional merit may be declared an Honorary Citizen of the United States by an Act of Congress or by a proclamation issued by the President of the United States pursuant to authorization granted by Congress.
Seven people have been so honored, five posthumously, and two, Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa, during their lifetimes.
Recipients
The recipients are:
- General Lafayette, a Frenchman who was an officer in the American Revolution. On 28 December 1784 the Maryland General Assembly honored Lafayette. He was made an honorary citizen of Maryland again in 1823, as well as of Connecticut the same year. He was also recognized as an honorary citizen in a 2002 joint congressional resolution.[1]
- Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister (1963)
- Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat who rescued Jews in the Holocaust, posthumously (1981)
- William Penn, 17th and 18th century English proprietor and governor of the English North American colony of Pennsylvania, posthumously (1984)
- Hannah Callowhill Penn, second wife of William Penn and administrator of Pennsylvania, posthumously (1984)
- Mother Teresa, Albanian Catholic nun, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in India (1996)[2]
- Kazimierz Pułaski, a Polish soldier, member of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth nobility and politician who has been called "The Father of the American Cavalry,[3][4] posthumously (2009)[5][6]
For Lafayette and Mother Theresa, the honor was proclaimed directly by Act of Congress. In other cases, an Act of Congress was passed authorizing the President to grant honorary citizenship by proclamation.
Legal issues
Maryland's 1784 resolution stated that Lafayette and his male heirs "forever shall be . . . natural born Citizens" of the state; this made him a natural born citizen of the United States under the Articles of Confederation and as defined in Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution.[7] In 1803 and 1804 President Jefferson offered to make him Governor of Louisiana.[8] For the others, it is unclear what rights honorary citizenship bestows, if any. 7 FAM 1172 from the Foreign Affairs Manual of the State Department states explicitly that honorary U.S. citizens are not eligible for U.S. passports.
Honorary citizenship should not be confused with citizenship or permanent residency bestowed by a private bill. Private bills are, on rare occasions, used to provide relief to individuals, often in immigration cases, and are also passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. One such statute, granting Elian Gonzalez U.S. citizenship, was suggested in 1999, but was never enacted.[9]
Honorary citizenship of states and municipalities
A periodic segment on The Late Late Show documented host Craig Ferguson's progress in obtaining honorary citizenship of individual U.S. states and cities. A number of governors and mayors have granted him honorary state or city citizenship, including the states of Alaska and Nevada.[10] This campaign should not be taken seriously; according to the show, "honorary citizenship is legally meaningless." Ferguson obtained regular U.S. citizenship by the usual means of naturalization in 2008.[11]
See also
Notes
- ^ Public Law 107-209
- ^ H. J.Res.191
- ^ " Casimir Pulaski Day, the Office of Civil Rights and Diversity at Eastern Illinois University. Leszek Szymański, Casimir Pulaski: A Hero of the American Revolution, E207.P8 S97 1994.
- ^ From Da to Yes, Yale Richmond, p. 72
- ^ "Obama signs congressional resolution making Revolutionary War hero Pulaski honorary American", Chicago Tribune
- ^ ASSOCIATED PRESS (November 7, 2009). "Citizenship for Polish Hero of American Revolution". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/us/08citizen.html. Retrieved 2009-11-19. "Gen. Casimir Pulaski finally became an American citizen, 230 years after he died fighting in the Revolutionary War."
- ^ Speare, Morris Edmund. "Lafayette, Citizen of America" The New York Times, 7 September 1919.
- ^ "Lafayette’s Triumphal Tour: America, 1824-1825" Cornell University.
- ^ Helms says he aims to offer U.S. citizenship to Elian Gonzalez. CNN, December 23, 1999.
- ^ The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, episode first aired on June 27, 2007
- ^ Craig Ferguson passes citizenship test. Associated Press (via USATODAY.com), January 28, 2008.
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