161 F. 237 | D. Or. | 1908
The petitioner, having heretofore filed his application to become a citizen oí the United States, at this time applies to the court for his final admission. The question to be determined is whether other witnesses can be substituted at the hearing for those named in the notice which is required to be posted for 90 days prior to the admission of the applicant. The statute (Act Cong. June 29, 1906, c. 3592, § 4, 34 Stat. 596 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1907, p. 420]) requires: (1) That the applicant shall make his declaration of intention to become a citizen. (2) That not less than two years nor more than seven years after he has made such declaration, he shall make and file his application to be permanently admitted to citizenship. Especial provision is made as to what shall be stated in his application. It is further required that the petition shall be verified by the affidavits of at least two credible witnesses, who are citizens of the United States, and who shall state in their affidavits that they have personally known the applicant to be a resident of the United States tor a period of at least five years continuously, and of the state, territory, or district in which the application is made for a period of at least one year immediately preceding the date of the filing of his peti
By section 5 of the act it is required:
“Tliat the clerk of the court shall, immediately after filing the petition, give notice thereof by posting in a public and Conspicuous place in his office,, or in the building in which his office is situated, under an approx>riate heading, the name, nativity, and residence of the alien, the date and place of his arrival in the United States, and the date, as nearly as may be, for the final hearing of his petition, and the names of the witnesses whom the applicant expects to summon in his behalf; and the clerk shall, if the applicant requests it, issue a subpoena for the witnesses so named by the said applicant to appear upon the day set for the final hearing, but in case such witnesses cannot be produced upon the final hearing other witnesses may he summoned.”'
By this statute the court is constituted the trier of the applicant's fitness to be admitted to citizenship. It determines the facts at issue upon the oath of the applicant and the testimony of at least two other witnesses, citizens of the United States. There is no specific requirement that these witnesses shall be the same as the witnesses verifying the petition; nor do I think that such is the intendment of Congress.. Of necessity, when the provisions of the statute relative to the verification of the petition are read in connection with the form of affidavit prescribed, the name, place of residence, and occupation of each of the verifying witnesses are set forth in.the record by an observance of the procedure; and if it was intended that they should also constitute the additional witnesses to be produced at the final hearing, why require that the same matter as it respects such witnesses be again set forth in the record? Furthermore, if it was desired that the same witnesses should perform both functions, namely, verifying the petition and establishing the appropriate facts at the final hearing, it would have been an easy matter for Congress to have said so in short order. But this it has not done. So it seems to me clear that it is not the purpose of the act that the witnesses to be produced at the final 'hearing shall be the same as those verifying the petition. They may be the same, if convenient) but it is not required that they shall be.
Now, proceeding another step, the statute directs that the clerk shall.
The petitioner will be admitted to citizenship.