[DX-NEWS] Canal Zone info....

[AA6T]

Hi Guys,      My first attempt didn't make it as I used the wrong callsign.    My good friend Jack KH6KT has some good comments on the Canal Zone issue.    Good reading.                                                   73 & Aloha,                                                    Lloyd                                             KH6LC  ex AA6T

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Hi Guys,     A good friend of mine, Jack KH6KT,  was born down there and here's his comments.                                                   73 & Aloha,                                                    Lloyd                                            KH6LC  ex AA6T

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Aloha Lloyd,

 

My father was the division head for the entire Customs and Immigration service in the Canal Zone  and I can tell you for sure that the citizenship issue was a lot more involved than what those guys are telling you.

 

First of all you need to understand tome things about the Canal Zone. We didn't own it and it was't ours in the sense that Hawaii is ours. The Canal Zone was never anything more than a lease from the Republic of Panama to the US with a lot of real unsual terms. The terms of the lease changed over the years from a lease for perpetuity to a 99 year lease to something whatever (I don't know what other term lengths were negotiated in the recent past). Lots of Americans and Canal Zone people will tell you that we owned the Canal Zone but that is totally incorrect. A lease forever is still a lease and in this case Pamana is the leasor and the US was the leasee. You don't loan something you are leasing. There were other terms of the lease that stated all kinds of things that make people think we owned the Canal Zone. It says in the original treaty with Panama and the lease, that the US had the legal right to use the Canal Zone with all the powers as though it were the sovereign (a very important lease term). This provision essentially turned over all control of the Canal Zone to the US to be used as though we owned it for the term length of the lease.

 

US citizenship wasn't something they just handed you because you were born in the Canal Zone. There are provisions in the US legal system for US citizens born abroad that define who is and who isn't a US citizen. These are the same provisions that make military dependents born abroad US citizens with a little different twist. There is a special document issued by the US Immigration and Naturalization Department for US citizens born abroad and in the Canal Zone. It is called a "Certificate of Citizenship". I have one if you want to see it. My father was responsible for getting this document approved for use in the Canal Zone and I was issued one of the very first ones back in the 1950s. 

 

The Canal Zone was a very unique place and unlike any other global  American foothold because it was a lease. To live in the Canal Zone you had to be employed by the Panama Canal Company, The Canal Zone Government, a steamship agency, some kind of canal associated contractor, US military, or something like the US Embassy. There were a few others allowed to live in the Canal Zone like pastors and priest directly affiliated with a church in the Canal Zone. My grand parents were allowed to live in the Canal Zone after they retired only because they were original Panama Canal construction employees. Almost all of these people were US citizens to begin with and their dependents were therefore granted citizenship by provisions in US law (dependent citizenship by parent citizenship). It is anything but straight forward like those people (Canal Zone people or whatever) are saying.

 

Also, a person born in the Canal Zone does not have duel citizenship at birth. I have always heard that a person born in the Canal Zone had a choice to be one or the other but I never knew anyone that didn't somehow get American Citizenship for their child and I never knew anybody with both that didn't make a special effort to get it. Anyway there is no doubt that a person born in the Canal Zone can have duel citizenship. You just have to do something to get it. Panama will grant citizenship to a person born in the Canal Zone but you must apply for it. 

 

I was not born in the Canal Zone. I was born in the Republic of Panama at the US operated Colon Hospital and I do not have Panamanian citizenship. I was a US citizen at birth because parents were US citizens working for the Canal Zone Government and they filed for my US citizenship. I have the papers they filed if you want to see them. I can apply for Panamanian citizenship and I will probably get it, but I wasn't born with it or with any other citizenship for that matter. It is not straight forward. It can be complex depending on the individual situation.

 

It always amazes me that even Canal Zone people do not know what they are talking about. They just think things like citizenship automatically happens.

 

Jack

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Jack,

   Here's a message from that discussion on CZ.

 

                            Lloyd

> ATTACHMENT part 2 message/rfc822
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:01:48 -0500
From: Casey Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], DX-NEWS@njdxa.org
Subject: Re: [DX-NEWS] yap - micronesia or belau(palau)?

According to 2 friends of mine - one worked in the Zone, a second that
was born in the Zone, this is not the case. The Zone was US property
and those born there were citizens. The individual born in the Zone
served with me in the Air Force. Anyone born in the Zone of Panamanian
parents has dual citizenship - that according to the State Dept Web site.
Casey/KQ4YI
>
> A baby born in the U.S. (i.e. Alabama) is automatically a U.S.
> citizen but a baby born in the Canal Zone was not.
>


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