Legal status of territories




The U.S. has had territories since its beginning. In the chapter of US federal law on immigration and nationality, the term "United States" (used in a geographical sense) is defined, unless otherwise specified, as "the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands of the United States, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands". A 2007 executive order on environmental, energy, and transportation management defined American Samoa as part of the US "in a geographical sense".

Organized territories are lands under federal sovereignty (but not part of any state) which were given a measure of self-governance by Congress through an organic act subject to the Congress's plenary powers under the territorial clause of the Constitution's Article Four, section 3.

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