Mr. Hay to Mr. Pearson.
Washington, February 25, 1904.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 31, of the 20th ultimo, reporting your refusal to isue a passport to [Page 657] Ablahat Odishu Samuel, the facts of the case, as appear upon the face of the application, being as follows:
Samuel resided three years in the United States—from 1893 to 1896—and then three years abroad—from 1896 to 1899. His residence abroad was presumably in Persia, as two of his children, whom he asks to have included in his passport, were born in that country, one on May 17, 1897, and the other on January 19, 1900. He then returned to the United States and remained here from 1899 to 1901, thus making up, in two periods, the five years’ residence necessary for naturalization. Almost immediately, thereafter he returned to Persia, where he has since resided continuously. He thus leaves the unavoidable inference that the sole purpose of his second journey to the United States was to secure the certificate of naturalization.
Samuel expresses an intention to return to the United States within three years, thus making his residence nine years in Persia and five years in the United States, since his first arrival in this country.
Your action in refusing a passport is approved. As set forth in the Department’s circular instruction of March 27, 1899,a “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.”
The same circular, in speaking of the peculiar status of residents in a semibarbarous country, or one in which the United States exercises extraterritorial jurisdiction, says: “If they were subjects of such 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 (as quoted above) and for the same reasons.”
It would appear that Samuel is permanently resident in Persia, and his application may be rejected for that reason, as well as for the reason that his residence in this country before naturalization was not continuous, and, therefore, does not satisfy the requirements of law.
I am, etc.,
- Printed in Foreign Relations, 1902, p. 1.↩