of the 1940 Act denationalized naturalized persons after five years continuous residency abroad, but had no restriction on the length of foreign residence for birthright nationals. To address this discrepancy, the amendment proposed to exclude Puerto Ricans from loss of nationality because of residence abroad. It was referred to committee in the Senate and had no further action. The measure was reintroduced in 1943 and 1946, and was finally successful in exempting Puerto Ricans from denationalization in 1948. The US Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code, revised the wording concerning Puerto Ricans, granting nationality to persons born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899 and prior to January 13, 1941, who had not been covered in previous legislation, and thereafter to Puerto Ricans at birth. It did not address the status of persons born prior to April 11, 1899. Establishing citizenship for Puerto Rico (1900–1952) In 1900, the territorial legislature passed the Political Code of Puerto Rico, which recognized as Puerto Rican citizens, US nationals permanently living on the island, and former Spanish nationals who had severed ties with Spain, in language identical to the Foraker Act. However, it also contained the primary provision in Title II, Section 10, that anyone born in Puerto Rico "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was a Puerto Rican citizen. The US Supreme Court ruled in the Insular Cases (1901–1922), that for unincorporated territories and insular possessions of the United States, which were not on a path toward statehood, the US Constitution did not necessarily apply. Specifically, in Downes v. Bidwell (182 U.S. 244, 1901) the Supreme Court found that though Puerto Rico belonged to the United States, it was not part of it constitutionally because it was "inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation and modes of thought and therefore the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible". In Gonzales v. Williams (192 U.S. 1, 1904) the Supreme Court affirmed that Puerto Ricans were not aliens, or immigrants, causing Congress to pass in 1906, special provisions for persons born in unincorporated territories to naturalize in the United States. In 1917, the Jones–Shafroth Act established statutory, rather than constitutional, US citizenship, upon US nationals of Puerto Rico and those who might have been absent from the territory at