Mr. Adee to Mr. Finch.
Washington , July 5, 1904 .
Sir: The Department has received your No. 754, of May 21 last, relative to the case of Louis E. Hufnagel, who received a passport from you, the Department having instructed you in its No. 256, of April 8, that he was not exempt from allegiance to Uruguay, the country of his birth, if the laws of that country provide that those who are born and reside therein are citizens thereof. You ask whether, under the circumstances, his passport should be withdrawn.
In reply you are informed that the Department’s instruction to you of June 28, 1901, No. 188, stating that Mr. Hufnagel was entitled to the protection of this Government, and consequently to receive a passport during his minority, because his parents were at the time of his birth American citizens, is not withdrawn; but “it has been repeatedly held by the executive branch of this Government that our statute declaring children born abroad of American citizens to be themselves citizens can not, consistently with our established rule of citizenship by birth in this country, operate extraterritorially so as to relieve any person born and residing in a foreign country and subject to its government from his allegiance to that country.” (Van Dyne on Citizenship, p. 35.) While, therefore, Mr. Hufnagel can not be protected from his obligations to the Government of Uruguay, he is at the same time, as an American citizen, entitled to a passport for such purposes as it may properly be used to serve.
I am, etc.,
Acting Secretary.