Cable Act of 1922

Cable Act

Other short titles	Married Women's Citizenship Act Married Women's Independent Nationality Act Women's Citizenship Act
Long title	An Act relative to the naturalization and citizenship of married women.
Nicknames	Cable Act of 1922
Enacted by	the 67th United States Congress
Effective	September 22, 1922
Citations
Public law	67-346
Statutes at Large	42 Stat. 1021b
Codification
Acts repealed	Expatriation Act of 1907
Titles amended	8 U.S.C.: Aliens and Nationality
U.S.C. sections created	8 U.S.C. ch. 9 §§ 367-370
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 12022 by John L. Cable (R–OH) on June 16, 1922 Committee consideration by House Immigration and Naturalization, Senate Immigration Passed the House on June 20, 1922 (254-3) Passed the Senate on September 9, 1922 (Passed) Signed into law by President Warren G. Harding on September 22, 1922

The Cable Act of 1922 (ch. 411, 42 Stat. 1021, "Married Women's Independent Nationality Act") was a United States federal law that reversed former immigration laws regarding marriage. (It is also known as the Married Women's Citizenship Act or the Women's Citizenship Act). Previously, a woman lost her US citizenship if she married a foreign man, since she assumed the citizenship of her husband, a law that did not apply to US citizen men who married foreign women. The law repealed sections 3 and 4 of the Expatriation Act of 1907.

The law is named for Ohio representative John L. Cable, who proposed the legislation.

Former immigration laws prior to 1922 did not make reference to the alien husband's race. However, The Cable Act of 1922 guaranteed independent female citizenship only to women who were married to an "alien eligible to naturalization." At the time of the law's passage, Asian aliens were not considered to be racially eligible for US citizenship. As such, the Cable Act only partially reversed previous policies and allowed women to retain their US citizenship after marrying a foreigner who was not Asian. Thus, even after the Cable Act become effective, any woman who married an Asian alien lost her US citizenship, just as under the previous law.

The Cable Act also had other limitations: a woman could keep her US citizenship after marrying a non-Asian alien if she stayed within the United States. However, if she married a foreigner and lived on foreign soil for two years, she could still lose her right to US nationality.

ln 1931, the Naturalization Act of 1906 amendment allowed females to retain their citizenship even if they married an Asian. In 1936, the Cable Act was rescinded by the 74th U.S. Congressional session passage of the Citizenship Repatriation Act of 1936.

U.S. Congressional amendments to the Married Women's Citizenship Act.

...
Wikipedia