[V]
THE LAW IN OPERATION
Commissioner Campbell, in his annual report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1914, described in some detail the operations of the field service of his Bureau in the handling of the applicant for citizenship:
The headquarters of the various districts are located in the large cities, where the greatest number of aliens apply for naturalization, and in the public buildings or in close proximity to the courts.[64] In many of the cities where the examiners are in the same building with the court, it is the practice of the alien to appear with his witnesses first in the office of the chief examiner. Here an examination is made in advance of any work in the office of the clerk of court. The examiners, specially trained in the work, first ascertain whether the alien arrived in the United States prior to the passage of the Act of 1906. If he arrived prior to the passage of the Act, the examiner then ascertains, before assisting him in taking the second step in the process of naturalization, whether the alien has a declaration of intention that has matured.[65] If he has arrived subsequent to the passage of the Act, he ascertains whether the alien has been notified by the Bureau that the certificate of arrival required by law to be filed with the clerk of the court at the time of filing the petition for naturalization has been placed there by the Bureau. It may be stated here that when an alien applies for a certificate of arrival, the Bureau notifies him when it has been obtained and forwarded to the clerk of the court selected by the alien in which to file his petition for naturalization, and he is directed to proceed with the filing of his petition at the earliest practicable moment.
Upon learning that the certificate of arrival has been obtained, the examiner interrogates the candidate to learn his qualifications for citizenship and records the results of his examination. He then examines the witnesses to be reasonably certain that they are American citizens, that they are credible and of good character, that they have personally known the applicant for the statutory period, and can intelligently testify both as to his residence and good behavior during the period required by the statute to be ascertained and shown to the satisfaction of the court.
The examiner also sees that the blank form furnished by the Bureau for setting forth the statements required to be embodied in the petition for naturalization is correctly prepared. When the examiner finds affirmatively in all of these respects, he marks the filled-out blank with his initials and sends it with the petitioner and his witnesses to the office of the clerk of the court, where nothing further is to be done than the simple clerical work of filling in the petition, original and duplicate, from the blank, securing the signatures and affidavits of the petitioner and his witnesses, filing the triplicate copy of the declaration of intention and the certificate of arrival with the petition, and notifying them as nearly as may be of the date of the hearing.
This method prevails in large cities where the examiners are located in the buildings with the courts. The advantage to the residents of these large cities, in the saving of time and money to the petitioners and their witnesses, is readily discerned when it is considered that probably fifty thousand applicants for citizenship annually might follow this course if the conditions in each large center admitted of its being done. The advantage to be derived from having the candidate and his witnesses appear before the naturalization examiner in advance of his appearance before the clerk of the court were early recognized by one of the United States district courts, where a large number of petitions for naturalization are filed annually, and an order of court was entered accordingly. In other courts, while the practice has not received this formal recognition, the consistency with which it is observed is none the less definite. This practice prevails in at least one city where the office of the chief examiner is not located in the building with the court.
Further emphasizing the advantages of this practice, the Commissioner remarks that it enables the examiner to dispose of a large number of cases, and tends to obviate denials on such grounds as “that the petitioner is already a citizen”; “incompetent witnesses,” “insufficient residence,” “no certificate of arrival,” “declaration invalid,” “premature petition,” etc.—“unless, as is sometimes the case, a petitioner is obstinate and insists on taking his chance of admission by the court against the advice of the examiner.” The Commissioner goes on to say:
In some cities, by reason of the lack of proximity of the office of the examiner to that of the clerk of the court, the system does not prevail of having the candidate appear first before the examiner, ... but efforts have constantly been made to augment the prevalence of the practice, and since the great bulk of the naturalization work is in the large centers ... the plan described, with the restricted means provided therefor, admirably accomplishes the effective disposal of the mass of work arising under the operation of the law wherever it has been adopted.