Honorary Citizen of the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) This article has been tagged since August 2006.

Public Law 88-6 (1963) granted honorary citizenship to Winston Churchill.

A non-United States citizen of exceptional merit may be declared an Honorary Citizen of the United States by the President pursuant to an Act of Congress. As of 2006, six people have had this honor bestowed upon them, and only two of them were so honored during their lifetime:

Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during World War II (awarded 1963)
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa), Albanian-Indian nun and human rights advocate (1996).

Posthumously Awarded:

Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat and Holocaust hero (1981)
William Penn, 17th and 18th century proprietor and governor of the American colony of Pennsylvania. (1984)
Hannah Callowhill Penn, second wife of William Penn and administrator of Pennsylvania. (1984)
Marquis de la Fayette, French supporter of the American Revolution (2002)

Honorary citizenship is not to be confused with citizenship or permanent residency bestowed by a private bill. Private bills are, on rare occasions, used to provide relief to individuals, often in immigration cases, and are also passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. One such statute, granting Elian Gonzalez U.S. citizenship, was suggested in 1999, but was never enacted ^[1].