The Alien Registration Division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service has announced that there are 695,363 alien Italians in the United States and 314,715 alien Germans. The census of 1940 indicated over eleven million white inhabitants born in a foreign country residing in the United States, and a recent release shows that about 65% of these became naturalized citizens.1 It can be calculated, therefore, that we have in this country, excluding orientals, a neutral alien population of about two millions. Are these persons protected by virtue of alien status from liability to military service? The issue has been confused by claims that rights under international law are violated by forcing neutral aliens to serve. In what follows, attempt is made to show that no controversial issue of international law need be raised, and that no such issue need interfere with the legal and domestic right of the United States to request alien service.
