No. 379.
Mr. McLane
to Mr. Bayard.
Paris, April 20, 1888. (Received April 30.)
Sir: It occasionally happens that an application is made to this legation for a passport by the son of a naturalized American citizen born abroad after his father’s naturalization, but who has never gone to the United States and who expresses no intention of going there to reside. I have in several instances of this kind decided to issue a qualified passport, but having some doubt as to the propriety of giving any passport in such cases, I have the honor to ask for your instructions on the subject.
[Page 530]I yesterday issued a qualified passport to Henry Asehé, the son, born abroad, of Julius Asché, a native of Germany, who became an American citizen by naturalization in 1854, received a passport from the Department of State the same year, and a few years afterwards left the United States and settled at Bassorah, Turkish Arabia, where he engaged in business and died in 1870.
The son, Henry Asché, was born in Bassorah in 1866; has resided in that place and in Germany and France, but has never gone to the United States and has no intention of going there.
If the father, after acquiring American citizenship, had returned to reside in his native country, such a presumption might arise of his abandonment of his American citizenship and of his return to his original allegiance that his son, born there, could not be considered a citizen of the United States. In this case, however, the father, originally a German, after being naturalized an American, removed to Turkish possessions; there is no evidence that he had any intention of abandoning his American nationality, and the son born there was by our law at his birth technically a citizen of the United States.
Is this young man, who has never been in the United States, has never performed and has no intention of performing any of the duties of American citizenship, entitled to the protection of the United States Government?
I have given him the benefit of the doubt, and as no country but Turkey could claim him I have given him a passport in which his right to demand protection of the United States is qualified by any claims Turkey may have upon him.
For my guidance in the future I beg to be informed whether my action is approved by you, as the instructions of the Department heretofore issued are not very clear to me upon this point.
I have, etc.,