Origin
Named for historian and diplomat George Bancroft (1800–1891), who negotiated the first of these agreements with Prussia, then known officially as the North German Confederation, the Bancroft treaties were mainly intended to prevent individuals from using naturalization as a way to avoid military service and other legal obligations in their native countries.
From 1868 to 1937, the United States entered into 25 Bancroft treaties covering 34 foreign countries. A typical Bancroft treaty had three major provisions. The first specified the terms under which each party would recognize the naturalization of its citizens by the other. (Five years' uninterrupted residence in the adopted country was the usual requirement.) The second provided that naturalized citizens who returned to their native country could be prosecuted for crimes that they allegedly committed before they emigrated. The third and most important provided that naturalized citizens who returned to their country of origin and stayed there for two continuous years would be presumed to have resumed their former nationality. That would require them to meet any unfulfilled military service obligation in their native country and deny them the diplomatic protection of their adopted one. Article III of the 1908 treaty with Portugal was typical:
| “ | If a Portuguese subject naturalized in America, renews his residence in Portugal, without intent to return to America, he shall be held to have renounced his naturalization in the United States. Reciprocally, if an American naturalized in Portugal renews his residence in the United States, without intent to return to Portugal, he shall be held to have renounced his naturalization in Portugal.
The intent not to return may be held to exist when the person naturalized in one country resides more than two years in the other country. |
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Read more about this topic: Bancroft Treaties
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