No. 390.
Mr. Bayard
to Mr. Vignaud.
Washington, June 13, 1888.
Sir: Your dispatch No. 617, of the 31st ultimo, has been received. In it you state that the publication of the regulations requiring all foreigners entering the German Empire by the way of Alsace-Lorraine to be provided with passports has greatly increased the number of applications for such papers, and may raise new questions to be decided by the legation.
You therefore ask that you may be instructed by the Department as to the following points, viz:
- (1)
- Is a passport to be refused to the wife or widow of a naturalized citizen who has not the naturalization papers of her husband?
- (2)
- Is a passport to be refused to a naturalized citizen who has left his naturalization papers at home, or who has lost them?
- (3)
- Is a passport to be refused to a naturalized citizen residing abroad who has no intention at present of returning to the United States, and who is unable to state whether he will do so or not, or when he may do so?
- (4)
- Should not passports be refused to the children of naturalized citizens born abroad, who have never been in the United States, and whose fathers are or were permanently residing abroad?
In all cases arising under the first and second questions as quoted above the legation should require the original certificate or a duly certified copy thereof to be produced as the best evidence of citizenship. If the applicant shall be unable to produce a certificate of naturalization or a certified copy thereof, then the naturalization certificate, like all other records, may be proved by parol, but to admit parol proof of it the following conditions must exist:
- (a)
- The prior existence of the certificate must be shown.
- (b)
- If burned or otherwise destroyed, such destruction of the certificate must be proved.
- (c)
- If lost, diligent but ineffectual search for it must be shown.
- (d)
- Parol proof of a lost or destroyed certificate should not be received if the original record of naturalization, of which a certified copy [Page 543] could be procured, is attainable. A party who can not produce his naturalization certificate ban not supply it by parol proof unless he also prove that the original record of naturalization is unattainable and can not be reproduced by a certified copy.
As to the third question the Department holds that in such cases passports should be refused.
As to the fourth question the answer is in the affirmative, with the qualification that the exclusion does not apply to cases in which the applicant, when arriving at majority, seeks the passport in order to return to the United States with the avowed intention of taking upon himself the duties and responsibilities of American citizenship. If, however, clear proof exists of the father’s renunciation of American citizenship prior to the son’s birth, then a passport should not be granted to the son.
I am, etc.,