Quote from David on November 4, 2024, 7:07 am

I agree that nationality "should" be inherent and cannot be taken away because you're born where you're born right. I think the key may be in the agreement when an individual expatriates, as it may include an agreement to voluntarily and consequently legally rescind any claim to American nationality.  Remember, one can contract and agree to just about anything it seems. I would also bet that the expatriation "agreement" dictates that once an individual expatriates and garners a new country's citizenship, they cannot naturalize back to a U.S. Citizen regardless if they were American-born, aka had American nationality. 

As far as an expat applying and receiving a "non citizen national" passport, I think you're correct that it is specific for Samoan or Swain Island born individuals.  Roger believes this is where they hide our national status, so it was possibly designed for just that purpose.  There is not a specific "non citizen national" passport; it is a "Samoan" passport.  You can though extrapolate that it is a "non citizen passport" because inside the "Samoan" passport, it states, "THE BEARER IS A UNTED STATES NATIONAL AND NOT A UNITED STATES CITIZEN".  This syncs up with 8 U.S.C. 1101 (22)The term "national of the United States" means (B) a person who, though not a citizen of the United States, owes permanent allegiance to the United States (non citizen national).  What makes it a bit more confusing though is that the passport says "UNITED STATES NATIONAL" and U.S.C. 1101 says "national of the United States".   I believe these two terms are the same.

Quote from roberd42 on November 4, 2024, 9:27 am

Interesting take David. I guess ultimately it would take someone pushing the State Department to violate their own definition of “permanent” nationality then taking them to court over it. I also think it would require a natural born ex-pat to do so. An ex-patriate is a “non-citizen” “national” by those two definitions but not a “non-citizen national” as they weren’t born in American Samoa. It would certainly clear up some inconsistencies in the regs that we get stuck on during the show occasionally. 

Quote from David on November 4, 2024, 10:24 am

I agree wholly about that more clarity is needed but not sure how many situations would necessitate someone taking this on in a lawsuit, other than just to prove a point.  To this point, I pushed the envelop on voting for nationals with the Alabama Sec of State, primarily to prove a point and to show that an individual in the capacity of a national can vote in the federal election. They actually approved and signed off on my affidavit and registration as a national and put me on the voter rolls.  I'll be voting as a national in the federal election tomorrow.  See the Voter Registration of the Remedy area of the site to see how I did it.

Back on topic...it's interesting that you differentiated the terminology in how it's used via quotations.  Coincidentally, I've been planning to write an article specifically about how adjectives can be used before a noun and could be separated by quotations.  If not, then the term is could be assumed as connected, so to speak, to the noun creating a formal title that happen to have multiple words that create the formal title.  This grammatical use of words is used in so many instances in the national movement, mostly it causes confusion...intentionally in many cases in my opinion. You're example was actually one I was going to use as an example since it's directly relevant to the topic of the national status and by separating and using the word non-citizen as an adjective vs. as part of a formal title, changes its meaning substantially.  Another example could be "American national" or "American" "national".  In this example though, it can be shown that these two mean the same thing.

Another more simplistic example could be "Big Man" vs. "big" "man".  One could indicate a persons name, the other would simply indicate a man that is large.  Another, a bit humorous I suppose, is that my name is David Spring.  My mother use to joke that she could have named me Rusty Spring.  I think you can see how this could relate.  LOL!