denizen

/denazan/ In English law, a person who, being an alien born, has obtained, ex donatione regis, letters patent to make him an English subject,-a high and incommunicable branch of the royal prerogative. A denizen is in a kind of middle state between an alien and a natural-born subject, and partakes of the status of both of these. The term is used to signify a person who, being an alien by birth, has obtained letters patent making him an English subject. The king may denize, but not naturalize, a man; the latter requiring the consent of parliament, as under the naturalization act, 1870, 33 & 34 Viet., c. 14.

A denizen holds a position midway between an alien and a natural-born or naturalized subject, being able to take lands by purchase or devise (which an alien could not until 1870 do), but not able to take lands by descent (which a natural-born or naturalized subject may do). The denizen becomes a British subject from the date of the letters while a naturalized person is placed in a position equivalent to that of a natural-born subject. Naturalization of aliens is now governed by British Nationality Act.

In American law, a dweller; a stranger admitted to certain rights in a foreign country or as one who lives habitually in a country but is not a native born citizen; one holding a middle state between an alien and a natural born subject. One who has some relation to the enemy nation which is not lost by the alien's presence within the United States. United States ex rel. D'Esquiva v. Uhl, C.C.A.N.Y., 137 F.2d 903, 905.

Thus, one who lived and worked in Austria in 1938 at time Germany obtained control of Austrian government, and continued to live there until leaving for the United States in 1939, at which time he was issued a German passport, was a "denizen" of Germany, within Enemy Alien Act. United States ex rel. Zdunic v. Uhl, D.C.N.Y., 47 F.Supp. 520.

A denizen, in the primary, but obsolete, sense of the word, is a natural-born subject of a country