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Abstract

From the late 18th until the early 20th century, emigrants to the United States (men) who returned to their country of origin for what was intended to be a brief visit could find themselves forced into military service. At first, the U.S. reaction was sporadic. However, with mounting calls for the country to take systemic action, after the Civil War the United States finally negotiated a series of treaties. Referred to as the “Bancroft Treaties,” they provided that, upon naturalization in one of the treaty countries, an emigrant would lose citizenship of their country of origin and thereby no longer be required to perform military service in that country.

Not all countries were willing to enter a treaty with the United States. An important holdout was Switzerland. The United States criticized Switzerland for its refusal, describing the Swiss position as an “alleged score of owing paramount allegiance to Switzerland” that was “extraordinary and exceptional.” However, in reality, Switzerland sought to guard against statelessness and protect Swiss citizenship.

As a result of a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions adopted in the late 1950s and 1960s, the United States eventually adopted the Swiss position. The treaties that remain in place today allow for immigrants to the United States to be exempt from military service in their country of origin without loss of citizenship in that country.

Ironically—and hypocritically—at the same time that the United States was seeking the release of its immigrants from the figurative clutches of their countries of origin, the United States was developing a tight hold on its emigrants from the United States. It did and still does this today through the taxation of the worldwide income of Americans living in other countries. How the United States taxes its emigrants is highly penalizing as well as incompatible with the tax systems of the countries where the emigrants live. Many American emigrants feel forced to renounce U.S. citizenship as the only means to escape the penalizing policies.

These two emigration stories share profound parallels as well as crucial differences. The first story offers important lessons for today. For over a century immigrants to the United States required protection from their countries of origin. Today, emigrants from the United States require protection from the United States.

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