CORRESPONDENCE. CIRCULARS. PASSPORTS INTENT TO RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES. Circular. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, January 17, 1902. To the Diplomatic and Consular Officers of the United States. GENTLEMEN: The Department has from time to time received complaints from persons sojourning abroad that they have been refused passports because they were unable to state definitely when they intended to return to the United States. The renewed attention of diplomatic and consular officers is therefore called to the Department's circulars" of instruction of March 27 and September 26, 1899, relative to "Passports for persons residing or sojourning abroad" and "Intent to return to the United States," which should be carefully studied and applied to the construction of the regulations governing the granting and issuing of passports, so that no one who has effectually expatriated himself from the United States shall receive the protection which he has forfeited a right to expect, and, on the other hand, no one shall be denied protection who is a loyal American citizen not permanently and voluntarily absent from this country. I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, JOHN HAY. PASSPORTS FOR PERSONS RESIDING OR SOJOURNING ABROAD. Circular. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, To the Diplomatic and Consular Officers of the United States. GENTLEMEN: It has been represented to the Department that a greater uniformity than now prevails is desirable in the treatment of applications for passports from persons who allege American citizenship, and who have been absent from the United States for a prolonged period and are unable or refuse to give a definite promise of return. a See infra. FR 1902, PT 1—1 1 Diplomatic officers and consular officers having authority to issue passports will therefore follow the general principles of this instruction; but wherever a doubt arises as to the propriety of issuing or withholding a passport, they will communicate all the facts of the case to the Department and await its instructions. This Government does not discriminate between native-born and naturalized citizens in according them protection while they are abroad, equality of treatment being required by the laws of the United States (secs. 1999 and 2000, Rey. Stats.). But in determining the question of conservation of American citizenship and the right to receive a passport, it is only reasonable to take into account the purpose for which the citizenship is obtained. A naturalized citizen who returns to the country of his origin and there resides without any tangible manifestation of an intention to return to the United States may therefore generally be assumed to have lost the right to receive the protection of the United States. His naturalization in the United States can not be used as a cloak to protect him from obligations to the country of his origin while he performs none of the duties of citizenship to the country which naturalized him. The statements of loyalty to this Government which he may make are contradicted by the circumstance of his residence, and are open to the suspicion of being influenced by the advantages he derives by avoiding the performance of the duties of citizenship to any country. It is not to be understood by this that naturalized American citizens returning to the country of their origin are to be refused the protection of a passport. On the contrary, full protection should be accorded to them until they manifest an effectual abandonment of their residence and domicile in the United States. A passport is in its terms a statement that the person it names and describes is a citizen of the United States, and it is forbidden by law to issue one to any other than a citizen of the United States (sec. 4076, Rey. Stats.). The Secretary of State, and under him our diplomatic and consular officers, with certain restrictions, may grant and issue passports under such rules as the President prescribes (sec. 4076, Rev. Stats.). As a general statement, passports are issued to all law-abiding American citizens who apply for them and comply with the rules prescribed; but it is not obligatory to issue one to every citizen who desires it, and the rejection of an application is not to be construed as per se a denial by this Department or its agents of the American citizenship of a person whose application is so rejected. A condition precedent to the granting of a passport is, under the law and the rules prescribed by authority of the law, that the citizenship of the applicant and his domicile in the United States and intention to return to it with the purpose of residing and performing the duties of citizenship shall be satisfactorily established. One who has expatriated himself can not, therefore, receive a passport. Expatriation has been defined by Mr. Hamilton Fish as- The quitting of one's country, with an abandonment of allegiance and with the view of becoming permanently a resident and citizen of some other country, resulting in the loss of the party's preexisting character of citizenship. Thus, a person may reside abroad for purposes of health, of education, of amusement, of business, for an indefinite period; he may acquire a commercial or civil domicile there, but if he do so sincerely and bona fide aniino revertendi, and do nothing inconsistent with his preexisting allegiance, he will not thereby have taken any step toward selfexpatriation. But if, instead of this, he permanently withdraws himself and his property and places both where neither can be made to contribute to the national necessities, acquires a political domicile in a foreign country, and avows his purpose not to return, he has placed himself in the position where his country has the right to presume that he has made his election of expatriation. There being no legislative definition of what constitutes expatriation, it is a fact to be determined by the circumstances surrounding each case that arises. But even where expatriation may not be established, a person who is permanently resident and domiciled outside of the United States can not receive a passport. When a person who has attained his majority removes to another country and settles himself there, he is stamped with the national character of his new domicile; and this is so, notwithstanding he may entertain a floating intention of returning to his original residence or citizenship at some future period, and the presumption of law with respect to residence in a foreign country, especially if it be protracted, is that the party is there animo manendi, and it lies upon him to explain it. (Mr. Fish to the President, Foreign Relations 1873, 1186 et seq.) If, in making application for a passport, he swears that he intends to return to the United States within a given period, and afterward, in applying for a renewal of his passport, it appears that he did not fulfill his intention, this circumstance awakens a doubt as to his real purposes, which he must dispel. (Foreign Relations 1890, 11). The treatment of the individual cases as they arise must depend largely upon attendant circumstances. When an applicant has completely severed his relations with the United States; has neither kindred nor property here; has married and established a home in a foreign land; has engaged in business or professional pursuits wholly in foreign countries; has so shaped his plans as to make it impossible or improbable that they will ever include a domicile in this countrythese and similar circumstances should exercise an adverse influence in determining the question whether or not a passport should issue. On the other hand, a favorable conclusion may be influenced by the fact that family and property connections with the United States have been kept up; that reasons of health render travel and return impossible or inexpedient; and that pecuniary exigencies interfere with the desire to return. But the circumstance which is perhaps the most favorable of all is that the applicant is residing abroad in representation and extension of legitimate American enterprises. The status of American citizens resident in a semibarbarous country or in a country in which the United States exercises extraterritorial jurisdiction is singular. If they were subjects of said power before they acquired citizenship in the United States, they are amenable, upon returning, to the same restrictions of residence as are laid down in the beginning of this instruction, and for the same reasons; but if they are not in that category their residence may be indefinitely prolonged, since obviously they can not become subjects of the native. government without grave peril to their safety. The Department's position with respect to these citizens has uniformily been to afford them the protection of a passport as long as their pursuits are legitimate and not prejudicial to the friendly relations of this Government with the government within whose limits they are residing; and the Department has even held that persons who are members of a distinctly American community in Turkey and avail themselves of the extraterritorial rights given by Turkey to such communities may inherit their rights as American citizens, and that section 1993 of the Revised Stat utes of the United States which provides that "the rights of citizenship shall not descend to children whose father never resided in the United States" is not applicable, such descendants being regarded, through their inherited extraterritorial rights recognized by Turkey herself, as born and continuing in the jurisdiction of the United States. (Foreign Relations, 1887, 1125.) I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, Circular. JOHN HAY. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 26, 1899. To the diplomatic and consular officers of the United States. GENTLEMEN: Information having reached the Department that some of the diplomatic and consular officers of the United States have refused to issue passports to applicants who were unable or unwilling to state that they intended to return to the United States within two years from the date of their applications, you are instructed that the Department does not hold that a passport can not be granted to a person who does not make such a statement. As explained in the Department's circular instruction of March 27, 1899, a passport should not be issued to any person who does not intend to return to the United States or whose expressed intention to return is negatived by circumstances attending his residence abroad, but it is not intended to fix a definite period of time beyond which the protection of a passport is to be refused to a citizen of the United States. A passport is good only for two years from the date of issuance, but a new one may be granted when a new and satisfactory application is made. I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, DAVID J. HILL, Acting Secretary. CHARGE OF DIPLOMATIC MISSION IN THE ABSENCE OF ITS HEAD-CONSTRUCTION OF ARTICLE 19 OF "INSTRUCTIONS TO DIPLOMATIC OFFICERS." Circular. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, To the diplomatic officers of the United States. GENTLEMEN: Your attention is called to that clause of article 19 of the "Instructions to diplomatic officers" reading as follows: In the absence of the head of the mission the secretary acts ex officio as chargé d'affaires ad interim, and needs no special letter of credence. In the absence, however, of a secretary and second secretary, the Secretary of State may designate any competent person to act ad interim, in which case he is specifically accredited by letter to the minister for foreign affairs. In framing this instruction it was contemplated by the Department of State that in all ordinary cases, in the absence of the head of the mission, its affairs should be placed in the temporary charge of the actual first secretary of the mission, whose official title is "secretary.' It is understood by the Department of State that the term "the secretary" of the mission designates the actual first secretary, the designation of the second and third secretaries, when they exist, being specifically noted in their commissions. It is believed by the Department of State that a generous spirit of mutual consideration will permit questions of leave of absence from their posts to be arranged between the head of the mission and the secretaries under him in such a manner that the secretary of the mission shall always be present during the absence of its head, and vice versa, and such a course is expected by the Department under ordinary circumstances. When, however, an emergency arises requiring the affairs of the mission to be left under the temporary direction of the second or third secretary as chargé d'affaires ad interim, the Department should be first consulted, by telegraph if necessary. While the Department relies upon the discretion of the head of the mission in determining the time at which the secretaries under him may take their leaves of absence under permission of the Secretary of State, it is to be observed that the secretary in his capacity of chargé d'affaires ad interim will, in the absence of the actual head of the mission, act as its temporary head, and as such should exercise his discretion as to the necessity of the presence of one or both of the other secretaries, if there be such, during the period of his service in that capacity. I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, DAVID J. HILL, Acting Secretary. CHARGES AGAINST DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR OFFICERS. Circular. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, To the diplomatic and consular officers of the United States. GENTLEMEN: I append for your information and guidance copy of an Executive order, dated April 25, 1902, prohibiting diplomatic and consular officers from preferring charges against or criticising any other officer in either service except confidentially to the Department of State. I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, JOHN HAY. Executive order. Whereas the publication of alleged charges and criticisms against officers of the diplomatic and consular service, without an opportunity being given for due consideration of both sides of the questions at issue, has led to injustice to the persons attacked and to embarrassment to the Department of State in its disposition of the public business: It is hereby ordered that hereafter no officer of the diplomatic or consular service of the United States shall attack, or prefer charges against, or publicly criticise, any other officer in either service, except in a communication to the Department of State. |