Ambassador White to the Secretary of State.
Rome, May 2, 1906.
Sir: I have the honor to submit for your consideration the application for a passport of one Giovanni Caprio, and to request your instructions relative thereto.
The material facts of the case are as follows:
The applicant was born in Italy on November 29, 1877, and emigrated to the United States about April 15, 1895, while still several months under the age of 18 years. He was admitted to citizenship by the circuit court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts on November 14, 1904, as an alien who had arrived in the United States under the age of 18 years. In his application he claims an uninterrupted residence in the United States of nine years and seven months.
It is with respect to this last-mentioned point that I have the honor to request your instructions, as it appears from a certificate of identity issued by the mayor of Caprio’s native town, which accompanied his application and which may be considered as worthy of credit, that, the applicant produced four persons with a view to proving the period of his residence outside of Italy, and that these persons affirmed that Caprio emigrated from Italy, bound for Boston, Mass., in 1895; that he returned to Italy for the first time in 1898; that he emigrated a second time for the same designation, Boston, Mass., in April, 1901, and returned to Italy in 1904.
[Page 912]Under these circumstances I have the honor to inquire whether Caprio should be considered to have resided uninterruptedly in the United States for the required period of five years next preceding his admission to citizenship, or whether his absence of over two years in the country of his birth, especially in view of the fact that no declaration of intention to become an American citizen was made prior to actual admission, would operate to break the continuity of his legal residence in the United States within the meaning of the words “continued term “in section 2170 of the Revised Statutes.
I have, etc.,