Court to Hear Arguments Dealing With Citizenship of American Samoa Residents

The following excerpt is from an article posted in the January 30, 2015 edition of guampdn.com/:

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A federal appeals court in the nation’s capital is scheduled to hear oral arguments Feb. 9 in a case related to the citizenship rights of residents of American Samoa.

Unlike the territory of Guam, those born in American Samoa are not considered U.S. citizens.

At issue is the fact residents of the territories do not have the same rights as residents in the rest of the United States. Congress over the decades has passed laws giving only specific rights to the individual territories, such as the Organic Act of Guam.

Former Guam resident Neil Weare, president of the “We the People Project,” in 2013 filed a lawsuit in the federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of American Samoans, arguing they’ve been denied their right to be U.S. citizens.

Read the full article.

About Leland Meitzler

Leland K. Meitzler founded Heritage Quest in 1985, and has worked as Managing Editor of both Heritage Quest Magazine and The Genealogical Helper. He currently operates Family Roots Publishing Company (www.FamilyRootsPublishing.com), writes daily at GenealogyBlog.com, writes the weekly Genealogy Newsline, conducts the annual Salt Lake Christmas Tour to the Family History Library, and speaks nationally, having given over 2000 lectures since 1983.

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