That used to be the case but sometime, maybe about 50 years ago, there was a supreme court decision that there could be no such thing as a second class citizen and such clauses were outlawed. Before that decision passports were issued for only three years, renewable for another two. After that, they first issued five year passports and then ten year ones.
Under the old law, naturalized citizens who returned to their native country would lose their citizenship after three years and naturalized citizens who resided anywhere outside the US would lose it after five.
On the other hand, the 14th amendment clearly implied that women were citizens. But until the, it must have been the 17th amendment, they were definitely second class citizens. And I think women have legally mandated disabilities in most Arab countries.
I know the President can’t be prosecuted for crimes while in office, but I’m drawing a blank on Congressmen and policemen.
I know some American Samoans, but some of them were born in Hawaii or California, so they are American Citizens. I know some Western Samoans, but that is a different kettle of fish, since that is a foreign country.
I think that’s a stretch. Just ask Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton if the President is above the law. Congress has historically, as an institution, exempted itself from certain laws (workplace safety, minimum wage, etc.), but that doesn’t raise Federal legislators, as a group, to a different level of citizenship. Bad cops may think they’re above the law and arrogantly abuse their authority, but at the end of the day they, too, are subject to the law and can be disciplined, fired or even prosecuted for misconduct. None of these examples of official misconduct makes the rest of us second class citizens.
“No man is above the law, and no man is beneath it.” - Theodore Roosevelt
Was this ever brought up, however briefly, in the legal halls of the Wahington and Arlington, in the run-up to and legal scrambling after the drone assassination of that al-Quaida biggie who was American?
Malaysia’s government openly and proudly has developed a legal system with strong “affirmative action” that benefit ethnic Malays (about 70 percent of the population), to the detriment of ethnic Indians and Chinese. For example, real estate ads give two prices for any house.
Not quite “second class citizens,” but close.
I think the example of Saudi women is a better one.
I think it has to count as de jure “second-class citizenship” if it applies to native-born residents who do not have any claim to citizenship anywhere else and cannot achieve citizenship in the place they were born and now live. Part of being “second class” may be that you don’t get the c-word applied to you: that doesn’t make it not second-class citizenship, it just points out how legally ensconced it is.
To what extent is a person’s ethnic classification as Malay, Indian, or Chinese defined in nationality law or elsewhere in the law? If a person’s father is Chinese but their mother is Malay, do they get to choose their ethnic classification or is it automatically assigned based on a rubric? Here in the US nowadays, a person of mixed European and African heritage can more or less make their own personal good-faith decision as to whether or not they consider themselves White, Black, or multi-racial and the government is not supposed to be allowed to contradict that. There aren’t specific blood quanta that coldly and methodically classify John as black, his half sister as multiracial, and his aunt as white. For example, if a person looks more or less white and most of their ancestry is Irish and German, but they have two black great-great grandparents, the government is not supposed to come in and stamp “African American” on his documents unless he agrees to it.
The only racial classification that is really subject to adjudication in the US is Native American status which is more or less equivalent to recognition by a tribe. So if the Navajo Nation says you are Navajo, you are Navajo.
The classic example was apartheid-era South Africa. From 1950 to 1991 every SA citizen was classified according to race - the basic categories were white, Indian, coloured, and black, though there were also more detailed subdivisions. Up to 1983, only white citizens could vote at general elections. From 1983 there were separate houses of Parliament for whites, Indians and coloureds - but none for blacks, and the white house had the effective power.
Race also determined where people could live, which schools and universities they could attend, what jobs they could hold, etc. - basically every facet of daily life.
(In the later period the government also started making black South Africans citizens of nominally-independent “bantustans”, so that they wouldn’t be SA citizens at all.)
Koreans in Japan aren’t really second-class citizens. Because they are either not citizens, or if they have naturalized, don’t face any ‘official’ discrimination. They may still face discrimination in the workplace, and that’s why Koreans mostly run their own businesses or are in entertainment, rather than try to enter traditional salaried ‘employment’. As a result, some of them have become very wealthy which is a further cause for the ill-will.
A better case for second class actual citizens of Japan are the Burakumin, or Ainu. Both are Japanese citizens but face social discrimination.
Alphaboi answered your question, but I’ll add that I agree it’s a weird concept for me, as an American, to imagine each person having an official and clear-cut ethnic identity, emblazoned on your ID card. It smacks of Nazism to us.
However, it may not be as immutable as it seems. My sister-in-law, a Malaysian citizen, is ethnically Indian, but through her marriage to an ethnic Malay, she was able to enjoy at least some of the benefits of first-class citizenship.
And, even here in the US, we have one parallel: membership in a “scheduled tribe”-- that is, tribal recognition of membership in an Indian tribe with government recognition. It can bring certain real benefits. But maybe it’s more akin, in practice, to being a shareholder in a corporation.
Of course this is a classic way for people do deny the existence of second class citizens. By saying they aren’t citizens in the first place, then their basic citizen rights can be denied from the get-go. Lots of countries have pulled this scam over the years.
In the case of many Japanese of Korean descent, it’s even more ridiculous since their pre-war immigrant ancestors were considered Japanese subjects. So they should have Japanese citizenship by descent and by birthplace.
I’m posting this, as usual, because it is obligatory, but all the more so because it captures one of the keys of my namesake (who everyone knows is a Jew), his journeys, and of the book:
Ulysses, Cyclops. The dialogue is narrated by a nameless amoral observer at a bar; the “citizen” is a rabid Irish nationalist. The other guys are of no importance here; they’re just standing at the bar drinking with a bunch of people:
Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about.
– Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it. Perpetuating national hatred among nations.
– But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse.
– Yes, says Bloom.
– What is it? says John Wyse.
– A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same place.
– By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that’s so I’m a nation for I’m living in the same place for the past five years.
So of course everyone had a laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck out of it:
– Or also living in different places.
– That covers my case, says Joe.
– What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen.
– Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland.
The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, gob, he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner.
By definition, non-citizens don’t have “basic citizen rights” to be denied in the first place. I don’t see how that’s a scam.
No, it only becomes a scam when non-citizenship is given as a reason for second-class treatment of a group and it is not possible for that group to gain citizenship. I believe that’s the situation a number of Palestinian refugees face in the Middle East. And it may have been the case for Zainichi in the past. But it’s not the case now. The Zainichi could become Japanese citizens if they wanted to.
They are flipping cause and effect. If you want to discriminate against a group of people, just declare them not to be citizens. Then you pretend that it’s the other way around.
Another classic example of this was during apartheid South Africa and it’s “homelands”. Surely you don’t think that was legitimate.