On this day, December 6, 1915, the Supreme Court ruled that American women with foreign husbands lost their citizenship.

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Reposted by Kevin M. Kruse
https://bsky.app/profile/kevinmkruse.bsky.social

Equal Justice Initiative
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On this day in 1915, the Supreme Court upheld a law providing that an American woman could be stripped of citizenship upon marriage to a foreign husband. U.S. men marrying foreign women were permitted to keep their citizenship.

Dec. 6, 1915 | Supreme Court Rules American Women With Foreign Husbands Lose Citizenship
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Dec 6, 2025, 9:00 AM

On this day in 1915, the Supreme Court upheld a law providing that an American woman could be stripped of citizenship upon marriage to a foreign husband. U.S. men marrying foreign women were permitted to keep their citizenship.

— Equal Justice Initiative (@eji.org) 2025-12-06T14:00:21.255Z

On this day Dec 06, 1915

Supreme Court Rules American Women With Foreign Husbands Lose Citizenship

Library of Congress

On December 6, 1915, the Supreme Court issued a decision upholding the Expatriation Act of 1907, which stripped American women of their citizenship when they married a non-citizen. Under that act, women who lost their U.S. citizenship could apply to be naturalized if their husbands later became American citizens—but since virtually all Asian immigrants were legally barred from becoming U.S. citizens at the time, an American woman who married an Asian man would lose her citizenship permanently. Similarly, women of Asian descent who were American citizens by birth had no means of regaining their U.S. citizenship if they lost it through marriage to a foreign person—even if the foreign person was white—because Asian men and women were ineligible for naturalization in all circumstances.

Meanwhile, American men who married foreign women were permitted to keep their citizenship.

Mackenzie v. Hare was an attempt to challenge the Expatriation Act and reached the Supreme Court. The Court upheld the law, ruling that an involuntary revocation of citizenship would be unconstitutional, but stripping a woman of citizenship upon marriage to a foreign husband was permissible because such women voluntarily enter into such marriages, “with knowledge of the consequences.”

The Expatriation Act remained in full effect until 1922, when Congress amended the law to permit most women to retain their American citizenship after marriage to a non-U.S. citizen—but still stripped citizenship from American women married to Asian immigrants ineligible for citizenship until discriminatory immigration laws were reformed in the 1960s. In 2014, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution expressing regret for the past revocation of American women's citizenship under this law.

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