The obligation of our foreign-born naturalized citizens and of our
government is mutual. The naturalized citizens owe loyalty to the United
States and the United States owes them protection. The foreigner, taking
out his citizenship papers, forswears allegiance to the country of his
birth and specifically to the ruler or rulers thereof, and swears to be
a true and faithful citizen to the country of his adoption. With this
oath upon his soul, any divided allegiance upon his part is treasonable.
Politically he stands precisely upon the basis of a native-born citizen.
So do his children, whether born in this country or not. His minor
children, born abroad, if they have come to the United States with him,
become citizens through his naturalization.
While the naturalized citizens thus owe the same undivided allegiance to
the country of their adoption that her native citizens owe, the country
of their adoption owes them precisely the same protection that it owes
the native-born. It owes them and their families the same protection of
the laws, the same opportunities for a vocation, the same right to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our government also owes them the
same protection while traveling or temporarily sojourning in foreign
countries.
Having exacted from the naturalized citizen the forswearing of his
allegiance to the country of his former domicile and its rulers, the
United States perhaps owes even a more punctilious obligation to him to
protect him in his rights of American citizenship. For if the native
country of the naturalized citizen does not recognize his right of
expatriation, and insists upon holding him, for instance, to military
service, the United States should be ready and able to protect him in
his right of exemption from such service. A country that cannot protect
its own citizens, whether native or naturalized, has no right to
independent existence. In these times the bearing of this point upon the
physical power of this government to assert itself and to command
respectful attention to its just demands, needs no extended discussion.
It is a time when no virile nation can afford to leave itself denuded of
defensive power and helpless.