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United States citizenship confers the right to acquire a U.S. passport.^[1]

Citizenship in the United States is a legal marker denoting political membership in the United States that entails specific rights, privileges, and duties. Citizenship is understood as a "right to have rights" since it serves as a foundation for a bundle of subsequent rights, such as the right to live and work in the United States and to receive federal assistance.^[2]

There are two primary sources of citizenship: birthright citizenship, in which a person is presumed to be a citizen provided that he or she is born within the territorial limits of the United States,^[3] and naturalization, a process in which an immigrant applies for citizenship and is accepted. These two pathways to citizenship are specified in the Citizenship Clause of the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment which reads:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

—from the Fourteenth Amendment.

National citizenship signifies membership in the country as a whole; state citizenship, in contrast, signifies a relation between a person and a particular state and has limited application, generally, with some exceptions being that state citizenship may affect (1) tax decisions and (2) eligibility for some state-provided benefits such as higher education and (3) eligibility for state political posts such as U.S. Senator.

In Article One of the Constitution, the power to establish a "uniform rule of naturalization" is granted explicitly to Congress. Most persons who undergo naturalization do so to get permission to live and work in the nation legally.

American law permits multiple citizenship, so a citizen of another country may retain their native citizenship after becoming a citizen of the United States. The reverse is not necessarily true, however; one cannot always maintain U.S. citizenship after attaining citizenship of another country.^[4] Citizenship can be renounced by citizens,^[5] and it can also be restored.^[6]

Relation of citizenship[link]

Citizenship is the legal status of membership in the United States. Citizens have the right to live and work without fear of deportation. The activities typically associated with citizenship typically include duties and privileges.

Duties[link]

U.S. citizens may be summoned to serve on a jury.

• Jury duty is only imposed upon citizens. Jury duty may be considered the "sole differential obligation" between non-citizens and citizens; the federal and state courts "uniformly exclude non-citizens from jury pools today, and with the exception of a few states in the past, this has always been the case.^[7]

• Military participation is not currently required in the United States, but a policy of conscription of men has been in place at various times (both in war and in peace) in American history, most recently during the Vietnam War. Currently, the United States armed forces are a professional all-volunteer force, although both male U.S. citizens and male non-citizen permanent residents are required to register with the Selective Service System and may be called up in the event of a future draft. Johns Hopkins University political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg wrote "the professional military has limited the need for citizen soldiers."^[2]

Citizens are required to file US taxes even if they do not live in the US.

• Taxes In the United States today, everyone except those whose income is derived from tax exempt revenue (Subchapter N, Section 861 of the US Tax Code) is required to pay taxes, and this has been the case for many years. The U.S. requires that aliens who are present in the United States, including non-immigrants and illegal immigrants, for more than 180 days must file tax returns.^[8] American citizens are subject to taxes wherever they go in the world.^[9]

Rights[link]

The U.S. military has been an all-volunteer force since the end of the Vietnam War but male U.S. citizens and non-citizens are still required to register for the military draft within 30 days of their 18th birthday.

• Freedom to reside and work. United States citizens have the right to reside and work in the United States. Certain non-citizens, such as permanent residents, have similar rights. However, non-citizens, unlike citizens, may have the right taken away: for example, they may be deported if convicted of a serious crime.^{[citation needed]}

• Freedom to enter and leave the United States. United States citizens have the right to enter and leave the United States freely. Certain non-citizens, such as permanent residents, have similar rights.

• Voting for federal office in all fifty states and the District of Columbia is restricted to citizens only. States are not required to extend the franchise to all citizens: for example, several states bar citizen felons from voting, even after they have completed any custodial sentence. The United States Constitution bars states from restricting citizens from voting on grounds of race, color, previous condition of servitude, sex, failure to pay any tax, or age (for citizens who are at least eighteen years old). Historically, many states and local jurisdictions have allowed non-citizens to vote; however, today this is limited to local elections in very few places. Citizens are not compelled to vote.

• Freedom to stand for public office. The United States Constitution requires that all members of the United States House of Representatives have been citizens for seven years, and that all senators have been citizens for nine years, before taking office. Most states have similar requirements: for example California requires that legislators have been citizens for three years, and the Governor have been a citizen for five years, upon taking office. The U.S. Constitution requires that one be "a natural born Citizen" and a U.S. resident for fourteen years in order to be President of the United States. The Constitution also stipulates that otherwise eligible citizens must meet certain age requirements for these offices.

Substantial benefits[link]

• Consular protection outside the United States. While traveling abroad, if a person is arrested or detained by foreign authorities, the person can request to speak to somebody from the U.S. Embassy or Consulate. Consular officials can provide resources for Americans incarcerated abroad, such as a list of local attorneys who speak English. The U.S. government may even intervene on the person's behalf.^[10]

Citizens can compete as athletes for the United States Olympics team; President Reagan with Olympian Mary Lou Retton in 1987.

• Increased ability to sponsor relatives living abroad.^[10] Several types of immigrant visas require that the person requesting the visa be directly related to a U.S. citizen. Having U.S. citizenship facilitates the granting of IR and F visas to family members.

• Protection from deportation.^[10][11] Naturalized U.S. citizens are no longer considered aliens and cannot be placed into deportation proceedings.

• Other benefits. The USCIS sometimes honors the achievements of naturalized U.S. citizens. The 'Outstanding American by Choice Award' was created by the USCIS to recognize the outstanding achievements of naturalized U.S. citizens, and past recipients include author Elie Wiesel who won the Nobel Peace Prize; Indra K. Nooyi who is CEO of PepsiCo; John Shalikashvili who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and others.^[12] Further, citizenship status can affect which country an athlete can compete as a member of in competitions such as the Olympics.^[13]

Civic participation[link]

Civic participation is not required in the United States. There is no requirement to attend town meetings, belong to a political party, or vote in elections. However, a benefit of naturalization is the ability to "participate fully in the civic life of the country."^[10] There is disagreement about whether popular lack of involvement in politics is helpful or harmful. Vanderbilt professor Dana D. Nelson suggests that most Americans merely vote for president every four years, and that's all they do, and she sees this pattern as undemocratic. In her book Bad for Democracy, Nelson argues that declining citizen participation in politics is unhealthy for long term prospects for democracy. However, writers such as Robert D. Kaplan in The Atlantic see benefits to non-involvement; he wrote "the very indifference of most people allows for a calm and healthy political climate."^[14] Kaplan elaborated: "Apathy, after all, often means that the political situation is healthy enough to be ignored. The last thing America needs is more voters—particularly badly educated and alienated ones—with a passion for politics."^[14] He argued that civic participation, in itself, is not always a sufficient condition to bring good outcomes, and pointed to authoritarian societies such as Singapore which prospered because it had "relative safety from corruption, from breach of contract, from property expropriation, and from bureaucratic inefficiency."^[15]

Dual citizenship[link]

Dual citizenship means persons can travel with two passports; the United States permits dual citizenship.

A person who is considered a citizen by more than one nation has dual citizenship. It is possible for a United States citizen to have dual citizenship; this can be achieved in various ways, such as by birth in the United States to a parent who is a citizen of a foreign country, by birth in another country a parent who is a United States citizen, or by having parents who are citizens of different countries. Anyone who becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen is required to renounce any prior citizenship during the naturalization ceremony;^[16] however, this renunciation may not necessarily be considered effective by the country of prior citizenship. United States citizens are required by federal law to identify themselves with a U.S. passport, not with any foreign passport, when entering the US. The Supreme Court case of Afroyim v. Rusk declared that a U.S. citizen did not lose his citizenship by voting in an election in a foreign country, or by acquiring foreign citizenship, if such acts did not require him to explicitly renounce his U.S. citizenship. Americans who have dual citizenship do not lose their United States citizenship unless they renounce it officially.^[17]

History of citizenship in the United States[link]

Citizenship began in colonial times as an active relation between people working cooperatively to solve municipal problems and participating actively in democratic decision-making, such as in New England town hall meetings. People met regularly to discuss local affairs and make decisions. These town meetings were described as the "earliest form of American democracy"^[18] which was vital since citizen participation in public affairs helped keep democracy "sturdy", according to Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835.^[19] A variety of forces changed this relation during the nation's history. Citizenship became less defined by participation in politics and more defined as a legal relation with accompanying rights and privileges. While the realm of civic participation in the public sphere has shrunk,^[20][21][22] the citizenship franchise has been expanded^[23] to include not just propertied white adult men but African-American men^[24] and adult women.^[25]

Birthright citizenship[link]

U.S. citizenship is usually acquired by birth when a child is born in the territory of the United States. In addition to the U.S. States, this includes the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.^[26][27][28] Citizenship, however, was not specified in the original Constitution. In 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment specifically defined persons who were either born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction as citizens. All babies born in the United States—except those born to enemy aliens in wartime or the children of foreign diplomats—enjoy American citizenship under the Supreme Court's long-standing interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.^[29] The amendment states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." ^[30]

By acts of Congress, every person born in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands is a United States citizen by birth.^[31] Also, every person born in the former Panama Canal Zone whose father or mother (or both) are or were a citizen is a United States citizen by birth.^[32]

Some, but not all, children born outside the United States with at least one U.S. citizen parent have birthright citizenship by parentage.

While persons born in the United States are considered to be citizens and can have passports, children under age eighteen are legally considered to be minors and cannot vote or hold office. Upon the event of their eighteenth birthday, they are considered full citizens but there is no ceremony acknowledging this relation or any correspondence between the new citizen and the government to this effect. Citizenship is assumed to exist, and the relation is assumed to remain viable until death or until it is renounced or dissolved by some other legal process. While citizenship poses few requirements or duties, secondary schools teach the basics of citizenship and create "informed and responsible citizens" who are "skilled in the arts of effective deliberation and action."^[33] Teachers try to encourage students to believe that "their ballots count."^[33]

One controversial practice is maternity citizenship. It refers to the fact that babies born to foreign women while visiting the United States are automatically considered to have birthright citizenship.^[34] It has been criticized as encouraging women to enter the country illegally to give birth to U.S. citizens; by one estimate, there were 400,000 so-called anchor babies born in 2008 of whom neither parent was a United States citizen.^[34] The policy has been criticized further as an "antiquated practice" in which the baby becomes an "anchor" preventing deportation of "unlawfully present parents" and becomes an impediment to stabilizing the U.S. population.^[34] However, proposals to further the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009 (H.R. 1868) have been criticized as being "beside the point" and that the real reason for illegal immigration is based on the need for employment.^[34]

But the opposite situation, in which an American couple adopted a foreign-born child, used to mean huge headaches after the adoption process in terms of getting the foreign-born child recognized as a citizen. However, the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, which took effect in February 2001, made it easier for parents adopting children in foreign countries to naturalize them.^[35]

Americans who live in foreign countries and become members of other governments have, in some instances, been stripped of citizenship, although there have been court cases where decisions regarding citizenship have been reversed.^[36]

Naturalized citizenship[link]

Acts of Congress provide for acquisition of citizenship by persons born abroad.^[37]

Agency in charge[link]

Albert Einstein received his certificate of American citizenship from Judge Phillip Forman.

The agency in charge of admitting new citizens is the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, commonly abbreviated as USCIS.^[38] It is a bureau of the Department of Homeland Security. It offers web-based services.^[39] The agency depends on application fees for revenue; in 2009, with a struggling economy, applications were down sharply, and consequently there was much less revenue to upgrade and streamline services.^[39] There was speculation that if the administration of president Barack Obama passes immigration reform, then the agency could face a "welcome but overwhelming surge of Americans-in-waiting" and longer processing times for citizenship applications.^[39] The USCIS has made efforts to digitize records.^[40] A USCIS website says the "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is committed to offering the best possible service to you, our customer"^[41] and which says "With our focus on customer service, we offer you a variety of services both before and after you file your case."^[41] The website allowed applicants to estimate the length of time required to process specific types of cases, to check application status, and to access a customer guide.^[41] The USCIS processes cases in the order they're received.^[41]

Pathways to citizenship[link]

Military service is often a key to citizenship; Aviation Machinist's Mate Elmer Rayos, right, receives his certificate of United States citizenship from the commanding officer of the USS George Washington.

People applying to become citizens must satisfy certain requirements. For example, there have been requirements for applicants to have lived in the nation for five years (three if married to a U.S. citizen,) be of "good moral character" meaning no felony convictions, be of "sound mind" in the judgment of immigration officials, have knowledge of the Constitution, and be able to speak and understand English unless they are elderly or disabled.^[42] Applicants must also pass a simple citizenship test.^[42] Up until recently, a test published by the Immigration and Naturalization Service asked questions such as "How many stars are there in our flag?" and "What is the Constitution?" and "Who is the president of the United States today?"^[42] At one point, the Government Printing Office sold flashcards for $8.50 to help test takers prepare for the test.^[43] In 2006, the government replaced the former trivia test with a ten-question oral test designed to "shun simple historical facts about America that can be recounted in a few words for more explanation about the principles of American democracy, such as freedom."^[38] One reviewer described the new citizenship test as "thoughtful."^[39] While some have criticized the new version of the test, officials counter that the new test is a "teachable moment" without making it conceptually more difficult, since the list of possible questions and answers, as before, will be publicly available.^[38] Six correct answers constitutes a passing grade.^[38] The new test probes for signs that immigrants "understand and share American values."^[38]

• Military participation is often a way for immigrant residents to become citizens. Since many people seek citizenship for its financial and social benefits, the promise of citizenship can be seen as a means of motivating persons to do dangerous activities such as fight in wars. For example, one account suggested the United States Military was recruiting "skilled immigrants who are living in this country with temporary visas" by promising an opportunity to become citizens "in as little as six months" in exchange for service in Afghanistan and Iraq where US forces are "stretched thin."^[44] The option was not open to illegal immigrants.^[44] One estimate was that in 2009 the US military had 29,000 foreign-born people currently serving who were not American citizens.^[44] Spouses of citizens or non-citizens who served in the military also have less difficulty becoming citizens.^{[citation needed]} One analyst noted that "many immigrants, not yet citizens, have volunteered to serve in the United States military forces ... Some have been killed and others wounded ... Perhaps this can be seen as a cynical attempt to qualify more easily for U.S. citizenship ... But I think that service in the U.S. military has to be taken as a pretty serious commitment to the United States."^[45] Immigrant soldiers who fight for the US often have an easier and faster path to citizenship.^[46] In 2002, President Bush signed an executive order to eliminate the three-year waiting period and made service personnel immediately eligible for citizenship.^[46] In 2003, Congress voted to "cut the waiting period to become a citizen from three years down to one year" for immigrants who had served in the armed forces.^[46] In 2003, of 1.4 million service members, 37,000 active-duty members were not citizens, and of these, 20 percent had applied for citizenship.^[46] By June 2003, 12 non-citizens had died fighting for the United States in the Iraqi war.^[46] The military has had a tradition of "filling out its ranks" with aliens living in the U.S.^[47] Non-citizens fought in World War II.^[47] The military has struggled to "fill its depleted ranks" by recruiting more non-US citizens.^[48] But there is considerable anxiety about using foreigners to serve in the U.S. armed forces. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was quoted as saying: "When Rome went out and hired mercenary soldiers, Rome fell."^[47]

• Grandparent rule. One obscure ruling of section 322 of a 1994 immigration law enabled persons to emigrate to the United States if they could prove that a grandparent was a citizen.^[49] In 2006, there were 4,000 applications of citizenship through grandparents. While parents of any nationality can use the law, Israelis comprise 90% of those taking advantage of the clause.^[49]

• Amnesties have happened in the past in which illegal residents could petition for citizenship if they could prove that they had been living in the nation for a specified number of years.^{[citation needed]}

Strong demand[link]

According to a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, "Citizenship is a very, very valuable commodity."^[50] However, one study suggested legal residents eligible for citizenship, but who don't apply, tend to have low incomes (41 percent), do not speak English well (60 percent), or have low levels of education (25 percent).^[10] There is strong demand for citizenship based on the numbers of applications filed.^[50] From 1920 to 1940, the number of immigrants to the United States who became citizens numbered about 200,000 each year; there was a spike after World War II, and then the level reduced to about 150,000 per year until resuming to the 200,000 level beginning about 1980.^[51] In the mid-1990s to 2009, the levels rose to about 500,000 per year with considerable variation.^[51] In 1996, more than one million people became citizens through naturalization.^[52] In 1997, there were 1.41 million applications filed; in 2006, 1.38 million.^[50] In the mid-1990s, the number of naturalized citizens in the United States rose from 6.5 million to 11 million in 2002.^[53] By 2003, the pool of immigrants eligible to become naturalized citizens was 8 million, and of these, 2.7 million lived in California.^[53] In 2003, the number of new citizens from naturalization was 463,204.^[11] In 2007, the number was 702,589.^[11] In 2007, 1.38 million people applied for citizenship creating a backlog.^[50] In 2008, applications decreased to 525,786.^[50]

Naturalization fees were $60 in 1989; $90 in 1991; $95 in 1994; $225 in 1999; $260 in 2002; $320 in 2003; $330 in 2005.^[54] Application fees were increased from $330 to $595 and an additional $80 computerized fingerprinting fee was added.^[50] The high fees have been criticized as putting up one more wall to citizenship.^[38] Increases in fees for citizenship have drawn criticism.^[55] Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and former Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner, doubted that fee increases deter citizenship-seekers.^[50] In 2009, the number of immigrants applying for citizenship plunged 62 percent; reasons cited were the slowing economy and the cost of naturalization.^[50]

Citizenship ceremonies[link]

The citizenship process has been described as a ritual that is meaningful for many immigrants.^[38] Many new citizens are sworn in during Fourth of July ceremonies.^[11] Most citizenship ceremonies take place at offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.^[6] However, one swearing-in ceremony was held at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia in 2008.^[6] The judge who chose this venue explained: "I did it to honor our country's warriors and to give the new citizens a sense for what makes this country great."^[6] According to federal law, citizenship applicants who are also changing their names must appear before a federal judge.^[6]

Honorary citizenship[link]

Polish Count Kazimierz Pulaski was awarded with the honorary distinction of citizen 230 years after he fought and died in the Revolutionary War.

The title of "Honorary Citizen of the United States" has been granted seven times by an act of Congress or by a proclamation issued by the President pursuant to authorization granted by Congress. The seven individuals are Sir Winston Churchill, Raoul Wallenberg, William Penn, Hannah Callowhill Penn, Mother Teresa, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Casimir Pulaski.

Sometimes, the government awarded non-citizen immigrants who died fighting for American forces with the posthumous title of U.S. citizenship, but this is not considered honorary citizenship.^[46] In June 2003, Congress approved legislation to help families of fallen non-citizen soldiers.^[46]

Corporate citizenship[link]

There is a sense in which corporations can be considered as "citizens." Since corporations are often thought of as individuals in the eyes of the law, then it is possible to think of corporations as being like citizens. For example, the airline Virgin America asked the United States Department of Transportation to be treated as an American air carrier.^[56] The advantage of "citizenship" is having the protection and support of the United States government when jockeying with foreign governments for access to air routes and overseas airports.^[56] A competitor of Virgin America called Alaska Airlines asked for a review of the situation; according to "U.S. law, foreign ownership in a U.S. air carrier is limited to 25% of the voting interest in the carrier", but executives at Virgin America insisted the airline met this requirement.^[56]

For the purposes of diversity jurisdiction in United States civil procedure, corporate citizenship is determined by the principal place of business of the corporation. There is some degree of disagreement among legal authorities as to how exactly this may be determined.

Another sense of "corporate citizenship" is a way to show support for causes such as social issues and the environment and, indirectly, gain a kind of "reputational advantage."^[57]

Controversies[link]

The issue of citizenship naturalization is a highly contentious matter in American politics, particularly regarding illegal immigrants. Candidates in the 2008 presidential election such as Rudolph Giuliani tried to "carve out a middle ground" on the issue of illegal immigration, but rivals such as John McCain advocated legislation requiring illegal immigrants to first leave the country before being eligible to apply as citizens.^[58] Some measures to require proof of citizenship at polling places have met with controversy.^[59]

Issues such as whether to include questions about current citizenship status in census questions have been debated in the Senate.^[42] Generally, there tends to be controversy when citizenship impacts political issues. For example, issues such as asking questions about citizenship on the United States Census tend to cause controversy.^[60] Census data affects state electoral clout; it also affects budgetary allocations.^[60]

There have been controversies based on speculation about which way newly naturalized citizens are likely to vote. Since immigrants from many countries have been presumed to vote Democratic if naturalized, there have been efforts by Democratic administrations to streamline citizenship applications before elections to increase turnout; Republicans, in contrast, have exerted pressure to slow down the process.^[61] In 1997, there were efforts to strip the citizenship of 5,000 newly approved immigrants who, it was thought, had been "wrongly naturalized"; a legal effort to do this presented enormous challenges.^[61] An examination by the Immigration and Naturalization Service of 1.1 million people who were granted citizenship from September 1995 to September 1996 found 4,946 cases in which a criminal arrest should have disqualified an applicant or in which an applicant lied about his or her criminal history.^[61] Before the 2008 election, there was controversy about the speed of the USCIS in processing applications; one report suggested that the agency would complete 930,000 applications in time for the newly processed citizens to vote in the November 2008 election.^[62] Foreign-born naturalized citizens tend to vote at the same rates as natives. For example, in the state of New Jersey in the 2008 election, the foreign born represented 20.1 percent of the state's population of 8,754,560; of these, 636,000 were eighteen or older and hence eligible to vote; of eligible voters, 396,000 actually voted, which was about 62%.^[63] So foreign-born citizens vote in roughly the same proportion (62%) as native citizens (67%).^[63]

There has been controversy about the agency in charge of citizenship. The USCIS has been criticized as being a "notoriously surly, inattentive bureaucracy" with long backlogs in which "would-be citizens spent years waiting for paperwork."^[39] Rules made by United States Congress and the federal government regarding citizenship are highly technical and often confusing, and the agency is forced to cope with enforcement within a complex regulatory milieu. There have been instances in which applicants for citizenship have been deported on technicalities.^[64] One Pennsylvania doctor and his wife, both from the Philippines who applied for citizenship, and one Mr. Darnell from Canada who was married to an American with two children from this marriage, ran afoul of legal technicalities and faced deportation.^[64] The New York Times reported that "Mr. Darnell discovered that a 10-year-old conviction for domestic violence involving a former girlfriend, even though it had been reduced to a misdemeanor and erased from his public record, made him ineligible to become a citizen—or even to continue living in the United States."^[64] Overworked federal examiners under pressure to make "quick decisions" as well as "weed out security risks" have been described as preferring "to err on the side of rejection."^[64] In 2000, 399,670 applications were denied (about 1/3 of all applications); in 2007, 89,683 applications for naturalization were denied, about 12 percent of those presented.^[64]

Generally, eligibility for citizenship is denied for the millions of people living in the United States illegally, although from time to time, there have been amnesties. In 2006, there were mass protests numbering hundreds of thousands of people throughout the US demanding U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants.^[65] Many carried banners which read "We Have A Dream Too."^[65] One estimate is that there are 12 million illegal immigrants in the USA in 2006.^[65] There are many American high school students with citizenship issues.^[66] One estimate is that there are 65,000 illegal immigrant students in 2008.^[66] A 1982 Supreme Court decision entitled illegal immigrants to free education from kindergarten through high school.^[66] But it is less clear about post-secondary education.

Illegal aliens who get arrested face difficulties in the courtroom as they have no constitutional right to challenge the outcome of their deportation hearings.^[67] Writer Tom Barry of the Boston Review criticizes the crackdown against illegal immigrants since it has "flooded the federal courts with nonviolent offenders, besieged poor communities, and dramatically increased the U.S. prison population, while doing little to solve the problem itself."^[68] Barry criticizes the United States' high incarceration rate as being "fives times greater than the average rate in the rest of the world."^[68] Virginia Senator Jim Webb agreed that we are "doing something dramatically wrong in our criminal justice system."^[68]

See also[link]

Government of the United States portal

• Anchor baby
• Birth tourism
• Birthright citizenship in the United States of America
• Birthright generation
• Citizenship (general discussion for all nations)
• History of citizenship
• Jus soli
• Natural born citizen of the United States
• United States nationality law

References[link]

External links[link]

• How to Become a US citizen - an article on the process of becoming a US citizen
• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services - Citizenship Resource Center
• Study materials for the U.S. citizenship civics test
• Practice The US Citizenship Test

United States of America
Flag Great Seal
Motto: In God We Trust  (official) E Pluribus Unum  (traditional) (Latin: Out of Many, One)
Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"
Capital		Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°01′W / 38.883°N 77.017°W / 38.883; -77.017
Largest city		New York City
Official language(s)		None at federal level[a]
National language		English (de facto)[b]
Demonym		American
Government		Federal presidential constitutional republic
-	President	Barack Obama (D)
-	Vice President	Joe Biden (D)
-	Speaker of the House	John Boehner (R)
-	Chief Justice	John Roberts
Legislature		Congress
-	Upper house	Senate
-	Lower house	House of Representatives
Independence		from the Kingdom of Great Britain
-	Declared	July 4, 1776
-	Recognized	September 3, 1783
-	Current constitution	June 21, 1788
Area
-	Total	9,826,675 km2 [1][c](3rd/4th) 3,794,101 sq mi
-	Water (%)	6.76
Population
-	2012 estimate	313,802,000[2] (3rd)
-	Density	33.7/km2  87.4/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$15.094 trillion[3] (1st)
-	Per capita	$48,386[3] (6th)
GDP (nominal)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$15.094 trillion[3] (1st)
-	Per capita	$48,386[3] (15th)
Gini (2007)		45.0[1] (39th)
HDI (2011)		0.910[4] (very high) (4th)
Currency		United States dollar ($) (USD)
Time zone		(UTC−5 to −10)
-	Summer (DST)	(UTC−4 to −10)
Date formats		m/d/yy (AD)
Drives on the		right
Internet TLD		.us .gov .mil .edu
Calling code		+1
^ a. English is the official language of at least 28 states—some sources give a higher figure, based on differing definitions of "official".[5] English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii. ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language. ^ c. Whether the United States or China is larger is disputed. The figure given is from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook. Other sources give smaller figures. All authoritative calculations of the country's size include only the 50 states and the District of Columbia, not the territories. ^ d. The population estimate includes people whose usual residence is in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, including noncitizens. It does not include either those living in the territories, amounting to more than 4 million U.S. citizens (mostly in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens living outside the United States.

The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.^[6] The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity).^[3][7] Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.^[3]

Indigenous peoples descended from forebears who migrated from Asia have inhabited what is now the mainland United States for many thousands of years. This Native American population was greatly reduced by disease and warfare after European contact. The United States was founded by thirteen British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their right to self-determination and their establishment of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated the British Empire in the American Revolution, the first successful colonial war of independence.^[8] The current United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a stronger central government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.

Through the 19th century, the United States displaced native tribes, acquired the Louisiana territory from France, Florida from Spain, part of the Oregon Country from the United Kingdom, Alta California and New Mexico from Mexico, and Alaska from Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over the expansion of the institution of slavery and states' rights provoked the Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, its national economy was the world's largest.^[9] The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a military power. It emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for 41% of global military spending,^[10] and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.^[11]

Etymology[link]

In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.^[12] The former British colonies first used the country's modern name in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America".^[13] On November 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'." The Franco-American treaties of 1778 used "United States of North America", but from July 11, 1778, "United States of America" was used on the country's bills of exchange, and it has been the official name ever since.^[14]

The short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms include the "U.S.", the "USA", and "America". Colloquial names include the "U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States". "Columbia", a once popular name for the United States, derives from Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "District of Columbia".

The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an "American". Although "United States" is the official appositional term, "American" and "U.S." are more commonly used to refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). "American" is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the United States.^[15]

The phrase "United States" was originally treated as plural—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States".^[16]

Geography and environment[link]

The land area of the contiguous United States is approximately 1,900 million acres (7,700,000 km²). Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 365 million acres (1,480,000 km²). Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America, has just over 4 million acres (16,000 km²).^[17] The United States is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and just above or below China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted and how the total size of the United States is measured: calculations range from 3,676,486 square miles (9,522,055 km²)^[18] to 3,717,813 square miles (9,629,091 km²)^[19] to 3,794,101 square miles (9,826,676 km²).^[1] Including only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.^[20]

The Bald Eagle, national bird of the United States since 1782

The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Chihuahua and Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. At 20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the tallest peak in the country and in North America. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.^[21]

The United States, with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The southern tip of Florida is tropical, as is Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains are alpine. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley.^[22]

The U.S. ecology is considered "megadiverse": about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.^[23] The United States is home to more than 400 mammal, 750 bird, and 500 reptile and amphibian species.^[24] About 91,000 insect species have been described.^[25] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.^[26] Altogether, the government owns 28.8% of the country's land area.^[27] Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching; 2.4% is used for military purposes.^[27]

Political divisions[link]

The United States is a federal union of fifty states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Early in the country's history, three new states were organized on territory separated from the claims of the existing states: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. Most of the other states have been carved from territories obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. One set of exceptions comprises Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii: each was an independent republic before joining the union. During the American Civil War, West Virginia broke away from Virginia. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959.^[28] The states do not have the right to secede from the union.

The states compose the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass; the two other areas considered integral parts of the country are the District of Columbia, the federal district where the capital, Washington, is located; and Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also possesses five major overseas territories: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific.^[29] Those born in the major territories (except for American Samoa) possess U.S. citizenship.^[30] American citizens residing in the territories have many of the same rights and responsibilities as citizens residing in the states; however, they are generally exempt from federal income tax, may not vote for president, and have only nonvoting representation in the U.S. Congress.^[31]

History[link]

Native American and European settlement[link]

The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including Alaska Natives, are believed to have migrated from Asia, beginning between 40,000 and 12,000 years ago.^[32] Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. After Europeans began settling the Americas, many millions of indigenous Americans died from epidemics of imported diseases such as smallpox.^[33]

The Mayflower transported Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, as depicted in William Halsall's The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, 1882.

In 1492, Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, under contract to the Spanish crown, reached several Caribbean islands, making first contact with the indigenous people. On April 2, 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed on what he called "La Florida"—the first documented European arrival on what would become the U.S. mainland. Spanish settlements in the region were followed by ones in the present-day southwestern United States that drew thousands through Mexico. French fur traders established outposts of New France around the Great Lakes; France eventually claimed much of the North American interior, down to the Gulf of Mexico. The first successful English settlements were the Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. The 1628 chartering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony resulted in a wave of migration; by 1634, New England had been settled by some 10,000 Puritans. Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution, about 50,000 convicts were shipped to Britain's American colonies.^[34] Beginning in 1614, the Dutch settled along the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.

In 1674, the Dutch ceded their American territory to England; the province of New Netherland was renamed New York. Many new immigrants, especially to the South, were indentured servants—some two-thirds of all Virginia immigrants between 1630 and 1680.^[35] By the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of America were established. All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism. All legalized the African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, the colonial population grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. In the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans (popularly known as "American Indians"), who were being displaced, those thirteen colonies had a population of 2.6 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain; nearly one in five Americans were black slaves.^[36] Though subject to British taxation, the American colonials had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.

Independence and expansion[link]

Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull, 1817–18

Tensions between American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 to 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights", the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. That date is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak confederal government that operated until 1789.

After the British defeat by American forces assisted by the French and Spanish, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and the states' sovereignty over American territory west to the Mississippi River. Those wishing to establish a strong federal government with powers of taxation organized a constitutional convention in 1787. The United States Constitution was ratified in 1788, and the new republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and president—George Washington—took office in 1789. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.

Attitudes toward slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution protected the Atlantic slave trade only until 1808. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution". The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements, including abolitionism.

Territorial acquisitions by date

Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size.^[37] The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that stripped the native peoples of their land. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, amid a period when the concept of Manifest Destiny was becoming popular.^[38] The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. The U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest. The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 further spurred western migration. New railways made relocation easier for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century, up to 40 million American bison, or buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railways' spread. The loss of the buffalo, a primary resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.

Civil War and industrialization[link]

Battle of Gettysburg, lithograph by Currier & Ives, ca. 1863

Tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments about the relationship between the state and federal governments, as well as violent conflicts over the spread of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860. Before he took office, seven slave states declared their secession—which the federal government maintained was illegal—and formed the Confederate States of America. With the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declared slaves in the Confederacy to be free. Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution ensured freedom for the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves,^[39] made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power.^[40] The war remains the deadliest conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers.^[41]

Immigrants at Ellis Island, New York Harbor, 1902

After the war, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. The resolution of the disputed 1876 presidential election by the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws soon disenfranchised many African Americans. In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe hastened the country's industrialization. The wave of immigration, lasting until 1929, provided labor and transformed American culture. National infrastructure development spurred economic growth. The 1867 Alaska Purchase from Russia completed the country's mainland expansion. The Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 was the last major armed conflict of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents; the United States annexed the archipelago in 1898. Victory in the Spanish–American War the same year demonstrated that the United States was a world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.^[42] The Philippines gained independence a half-century later; Puerto Rico and Guam remain U.S. territories.

World War I, Great Depression, and World War II[link]

An abandoned farm in South Dakota during the Dust Bowl, 1936

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. Most Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many opposed intervention.^[43] In 1917, the United States joined the Allies, and the American Expeditionary Forces helped to turn the tide against the Central Powers. After the war, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. The country pursued a policy of unilateralism, verging on isolationism.^[44] In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy, including the establishment of the Social Security system.^[45] The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.

Soldiers of the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division landing in Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944

The United States, effectively neutral during World War II's early stages after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers as well as the internment of Japanese Americans by the thousands.^[46] Participation in the war spurred capital investment and industrial capacity. Among the major combatants, the United States was the only nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of the war.^[47] Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.^[48] The United States, having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war.^[49]

Cold War and protest politics[link]

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech, 1963

The United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during the Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact, respectively. While they engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military conflict. Resisting leftist land and income redistribution projects around the world, the United States often supported authoritarian governments. American troops fought Communist Chinese forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The House Un-American Activities Committee pursued a series of investigations into suspected leftist subversion, while Senator Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment.

The 1961 Soviet launch of the first manned spaceflight prompted President John F. Kennedy's call for the United States to be first to land "a man on the moon", achieved in 1969. Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, the United States experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement, symbolized and led by African Americans such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., used nonviolence to confront segregation and discrimination. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson.^[50][51] He also signed into law the Medicare and Medicaid programs.^[52] Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. A widespread countercultural movement grew, fueled by opposition to the war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and others led a new wave of feminism that sought political, social, and economic equality for women.

As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, to avoid being impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power. The Jimmy Carter administration of the late 1970s was marked by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 heralded a rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in taxation and spending priorities. His second term in office brought both the Iran-Contra scandal and significant diplomatic progress with the Soviet Union. The subsequent Soviet collapse ended the Cold War.

Contemporary era[link]

The World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001

Under President George H. W. Bush, the United States took a lead role in the UN–sanctioned Gulf War. The longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the Bill Clinton administration and the dot-com bubble.^[53] A civil lawsuit and sex scandal led to Clinton's impeachment in 1998, but he remained in office. The 2000 presidential election, one of the closest in American history, was resolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decision—George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, became president.

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly three thousand people. In response, the Bush administration launched the global War on Terror, invading Afghanistan and removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda training camps. Taliban insurgents continue to fight a guerrilla war. In 2002, the Bush administration began to press for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds.^[54] Forces led by the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, ousting Saddam Hussein. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused severe destruction along much of the Gulf Coast, devastating New Orleans. In 2008, amid a global economic recession, the first African American president, Barack Obama, was elected. Major health care and financial system reforms were enacted two years later. In 2011, a raid by Navy SEALs in Pakistan killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The Iraq War ended with the pullout of the remaining U.S. troops from the country.

Government and politics[link]

The west front of the United States Capitol, which houses the U.S. Congress

The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law".^[55] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document.^[56] In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels.

The south façade of the White House, home and workplace of the U.S. president

The federal government is composed of three branches:

• Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.
• Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
• Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.

The west front of the United States Supreme Court Building

The House of Representatives has 435 voting members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population every tenth year. As of the 2000 census, seven states have the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, has fifty-three. The Senate has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned to the states and the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.

The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion; Nebraska uniquely has a unicameral legislature. The governor (chief executive) of each state is directly elected. Some state judges and cabinet officers are appointed by the governors of the respective states, while others are elected by popular vote.

The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a jury trial in all criminal cases. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times; the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution is voided. The principle of judicial review, not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was declared by the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison (1803).

Parties and ideology[link]

Barack Obama taking the presidential oath of office from U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, January 20, 2009

The United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history.^[57] For elective offices at most levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.

Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered center-right or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered center-left or liberal. The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states", are relatively liberal. The "red states" of the South and parts of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative.

The winner of the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama, is the 44th U.S. president. The 2010 midterm elections saw the Republican Party take control of the House and make gains in the Senate, where the Democrats retain the majority. In the 112th United States Congress, the Senate comprises 51 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans; the House comprises 242 Republicans and 192 Democrats—one seat is vacant. There are 29 Republican and 20 Democratic state governors, as well as one independent.

Foreign relations and military[link]

British Foreign Secretary William Hague and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, May 2010

The United States exercises global economic, political, and military influence. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and New York City hosts the United Nations Headquarters. It is a member of the G8,^[58] G20, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many have consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.

The United States has a "special relationship" with the United Kingdom^[59] and strong ties with Canada,^[60] Australia,^[61] New Zealand,^[62] the Philippines,^[63] Japan,^[64] South Korea,^[65] Israel,^[66] and several European countries. It works closely with fellow NATO members on military and security issues and with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2008, the United States spent a net $25.4 billion on official development assistance, the most in the world. As a share of America's large gross national income (GNI), however, the U.S. contribution of 0.18% ranked last among twenty-two donor states. By contrast, private overseas giving by Americans is relatively generous.^[67]

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier

The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the Department of the Navy in time of war. In 2008, the armed forces had 1.4 million personnel on active duty. The Reserves and National Guard brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors.^[68]

Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System.^[69] American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy's eleven active aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea with the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The military operates 865 bases and facilities abroad,^[70] and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.^[71] The extent of this global military presence has prompted some scholars to describe the United States as maintaining an "empire of bases".^[72]

Total U.S. military spending in 2010, almost $700 billion, was 43% of global military spending and greater than the next fourteen largest national military expenditures combined. At 4.8% of GDP, the rate was the second-highest among the top fifteen military spenders, after Saudi Arabia.^[73] The proposed base Department of Defense budget for 2012, $553 billion, is a 4.2% increase over 2011; an additional $118 billion is proposed for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.^[74] The last American troops serving in Iraq departed in December 2011;^[75] 4,484 servicemen were killed during the Iraq War.^[76] Approximately 90,000 U.S. troops were serving in Afghanistan as of April 2012;^[77] as of April 4, 1,924 had been killed during the War in Afghanistan.^[78]

Economy[link]

The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity.^[85] According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $15.1 trillion constitutes 22% of the gross world product at market exchange rates and over 19% of the gross world product at purchasing power parity (PPP).^[3] Though larger than any other nation's, its national GDP is about 5% smaller than the GDP of the European Union at PPP in 2008. The country ranks ninth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and sixth in GDP per capita at PPP.^[3] The U.S. dollar is the world's primary reserve currency.^[86]