Mr. Hay to Mr. Sampson.
Washington, January 21, 1902.
Sir: The Department has received your No. 269 of December 20, 1901, in which you treat of the subject of citizenship, residence abroad, and the granting of passports.
The Department is not unmindful of the difficulty our diplomatic agents have in determining whether a person applying for a passport is residing abroad animo manendi or animo revertendi; but it is obvious that no inflexible rule fixing a permissible period for residence abroad can properly be laid down, since the intent to return may actually exist in one case for many years after leaving the United States, and in another case may be nonexistent as soon as a person leaves our shores. The circular instruction of March 27, 1899, on the subject of “Passports for persons residing or sojourning abroad,” to which you allude, states the Department’s attitude in terms as definite as the subject seems to permit of, and this circular and the Department’s other pronouncements, especially the letter to the President of Mr. Secretary Hamilton Fish, dated August 25, 1873 (see The American Passport, pp. 129 et seq.), seem to leave little room for further observations which would not be repetitions of principles already enunciated. [Page 389] The application of these principles to the individual cases as they arise is a duty of the diplomatic and consular officers, and it is thought that being on the spot they are better qualified than the Department to investigate the circumstances surrounding the sojourn or residence of those who apply for new passports and to judge of their right to the continued protection of this Government. For this reason, and for the additional reason that injustice might arise in meritorious cases because of the delay, the Department can not concur in your suggestion that new passports should be issued to persons who are abroad only upon application to the Department at Washington.
As for the naturalization laws to which you allude, they are of direct concern to this Department only so far as they affect the international status of those who become naturalized. As you are aware, the Department’s regulations require every naturalized citizen when he applies for a passport to make a sworn statement concerning his own or his parents’ emigration, residence, and naturalization; and whenever the naturalization appears to have been improperly or improvidently granted, it is not recognized under the Department’s rules. Further than this the Department does not feel privileged to go, and the question of restricting the issuance of naturalization certificates to Federal courts seems to lie without the Department’s domain.
Your remarks about the status of Porto Ricans who apply for passports have been noted. Legislation, requested by the Department, is now, however, pending, having as its object the extension to Porto Ricans of the protection of our passports, and when Congress shall have acted, appropriate instructions will be issued by the Department. In the meantime, the instructions of the Department are to extend to all native Porto Ricans loyal to the United States who make application the same protection of person and property as is accorded to citizens of the United States, and while not at present issuing passports in their favor, to furnish them with such document not forbidden by the diplomatic and consular regulations for their protection as the foreign authorities may require.
I am, etc.,