501.AC/4–2446
The Secretary of State to the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Home of Representatives (Bloom)
My Dear Mr. Bloom: I am now in a position to reply more fully to your letter of April 24, 1946, transmitting for the comments of the Department of State copies of H. Con. Res. 143, a concurrent resolution “To provide for United Nations passports.”37
While I concur in the desirability of permitting travel in times of peace in all states Members of the United Nations or indeed in any portion of the world in which conditions are not abnormal, I consider that it is desirable that American citizens be documented by this Government. Moreover, Section 1 of the Act of July 3, 1926 provides that the Secretary of State may issue passports, or cause them to be issued by certain officials, under such rules as the President shall prescribe, for and on behalf of the United States “and no other person shall grant, issue, or verify such passports.”
In the cases of persons who are officials or employees of the United Nations, a United Nations credential may be recognized as a certificate of the status of the bearer as such an official or employee, but a national [Page 88] passport may also be required in most instances, if obtainable, for the purpose of establishing the identity of the bearer as a national of the country to which he owes allegiance, there being no such status as that of a national of the United Nations.
The determination of American citizenship is at times a very difficult problem and should be made as far as practicable in the United States where evidence of citizenship is usually available. Without a passport issued by the Secretary of State or under his authority, an American national traveling abroad would be likely to have difficulty in establishing his identity and nationality for the purpose of obtaining protection or assistance from American diplomatic and consular officers.
Since the United Nations is not a government, it has no national territory to which bearers of its passports may be permitted to return after travelling in other countries. Deportation of an alien from the United States can generally be effected under our laws only to the country of which the alien is a citizen or subject or to the country from which the alien came to the United States, which latter country is usually unwilling to accept the alien as a deportee unless he is a citizen or subject of such country. So far as nonimmigrant travel is concerned, the Government of the United States could not accept into its territory the bearer of a United Nations passport who does not have definite assurance of being able to return to the country from which he came or to enter some third country after a temporary sojourn in the United States. It is not believed that the member states would consent to have the United Nations issue a travel document which required each member state to accept the bearer into its territory, as this would involve a question of interference in matters of purely domestic concern to each member state in connection with its immigration and nationality laws, a power specifically withheld from the United Nations by Article 2, Section 7 of the United Nations Charter.
If the proposed measures should be adopted United Nations passports might be obtained by nationals of one member state for the purpose of carrying on objectionable political activities in the territory of other member states, but, according to the provisions of the proposed Resolution, these passports would have to be “honored” by the latter states. In such a case, even if the objectionable activities were directed by the government of the bearer’s country, it would be difficult to hold that government accountable, since the bearer would be traveling under the sanction of a document issued by the United Nations.
Since there is no apparent necessity for the United Nations to issue passports, and since there are valid and serious objections to such issuance, I am of the opinion that it would be highly undesirable for this Government to propose the course of action suggested in this bill.
[Page 89]The Department has been informed by the Bureau of the Budget that there is no objection to the submission of this report.
Sincerely yours,
- Letter of April 24 and enclosure not printed; an interim reply had been sent on April 29, not printed.↩