IN THE MATTER OF “CONTINUOUS RESIDENCE”
The fact of continuous residence within the United States for five years, and within the particular state for one year next preceding the filing of the petition, must be established to the satisfaction of the court. To the layman this would seem simple enough; but there is hardly anything connected with the process of naturalization about which there has been so much variety of interpretation. What constitutes “continuous residence”? It is said that a court in Utah disqualified an applicant because once during the five years he stepped across the Canadian border far enough and long enough to buy a sandwich! Shall a man lose his “residence” because of a walk across the International Bridge at Niagara Falls? Suppose he is a carpenter, or a farm hand, and goes over into Canada, or Mexico, for the summer months, or long enough to build a house? Suppose there is an estate to be settled up in the old country, or that the alien’s aged mother is dying in Copenhagen or Buda-Pesth, and yearns to see her son once before she goes. Shall that invalidate his residence? There are many judges who will not tolerate any absence whatever from the country, on any pretext.
In the great bulk of practice, however, it has simmered down to the question of “intention.” Reasonably carried out, as in other matters, it meets the average case. If the petitioner always, and everywhere, during the five years maintained his intention in good faith to become a citizen, and especially if he preserved a specific residence, both the courts and the Naturalization Service on the whole have waived the literal words of the requirement. But within that general situation there are degrees. There are judges who will permit an absence as long as two years, if “intention” is clear; some set a limit of one year, others of six months. Generally speaking, any absence in excess of six months is viewed with suspicion.
There are two reasons, as the law stands, for insistence upon residence virtually continuous. In the first place there is the wording and evident intention of the law, which must be obeyed in spirit, anyway. In the second place, in case of any protracted absence, the witnesses hardly can know what he has been about, and certainly cannot swear, as they must under the statute, to the fact of continuous residence. If the petitioner has been out of the ken of his witnesses in some other part of the United States, he can prove good conduct and American residence by depositions; but the law does not contemplate depositions regarding his conduct on any foreign soil, however legitimate his reason for being there. And if he has been in other parts of the same state, he cannot prove anything about it, by witnesses, depositions, or otherwise.