The Cable Act of 1922 was a United States federal law that reversed former immigration laws regarding marriage. . Previously, a woman lost her US citizenship if she married a foreign man, since she assumed the citizenship of her husband, a law that did not apply to US citizen men who married foreign women. The law repealed sections 3 and 4 of the Expatriation Act of 1907. The law is named for Ohio representative John L. Cable, who proposed the legislation.
Context of the Law
Former immigration laws prior to 1922 did not make reference to the alien husband's race. However, The Cable Act of 1922 guaranteed independent female citizenship only to women who were married to an "alien eligible to naturalization," where said naturalization also excluded aliens ineligible to citizenship via specific exclusions as codified in Immigration Law. At the time of the law's passage, Asian aliens were not considered to be racially eligible for US citizenship. As such, the Cable Act only partially reversed previous policies and allowed women to retain their US citizenship after marrying a foreigner who was not Asian. The Cable Act also had other limitations: a woman lost her citizenship upon marriage to an alien ineligible to citizenship; a woman could keep her US citizenship after marrying a non-Asian alien if she stayed within the United States. However, if she married a foreigner and lived on foreign soil for two years, she could still lose her right to US nationality. 1930 Cable Act Amendments reinforced a woman's loss of citizenship through marriage to an alien ineligible to citizenship, and Section 3 of unedited versions of the law's text indicate that: If at the termination of the marital status she is a citizen of the United States, she shall retain her citizenship regardless of her residence. ln 1931, the Naturalization Act of 1906 amendment allowed females to retain their citizenship even if they married an Asian. In 1936, the Cable Act was not rescinded by the 74th United States Congress. Congress did pass a law "to repatriate native-born women who have heretofore lost their citizenship by marriage to an alien, and for other purposes...said purpose clarified that women who lost citizenship prior to September 22, 1922, to an alien, and whose marital status with such alien has or shall have terminated, shall be deemed to be a citizen of the United States to the same extent as though her marriage to said alien had taken place on or after September 22, 1922. The 1936 law merely clarified that a married woman who lost her citizenship before or on September 22, 1922 could "retain" her citizenship" provided she was NOT married to an alien ineligible to citizenship, and the Act of 1936 further clarified that such woman was not a citizen until such time as she took the oath of citizenship.
