Anderson

This case requires us to apply a 1952 statute to circumstances far removed from those that the enacting Congress imagined. Gary Anderson, born in England to an American serviceman father and an English mother, is a citizen of the United States if and only if his “paternity ... [was] established while [he was] under the age of twenty-one years by legitimation.” 8 U.S.C. § 1409 (a) (1952) (“Former § 1409(a)”). When Congress enacted this law, it believed that “[a]s a general proposition, legitimation is accomplished by the marriage of the parents with acknowledgment of paternity by the putative father.” S.Rep. No. 81-1515, at 692-93 (1950). The law of Arizona — one of the states in which Anderson resided before the age of twenty-one — lacked any such requirement, however. Instead, it provided that “[e]very child is ... the legitimate child of its natural parents.” 1975 Ariz. Sess. Laws ch. 117, § 2 (codified at Ariz.Rev.Stat. § 8-601). The question we face is how to reconcile the language of Former § 1409(a) with a state statutory scheme in which it makes little sense.

Although Anderson’s biological father had no contact with him for more than four decades after his birth,…