> A federal or state law enforcement agency may request the denial of a passport on several regulatory grounds under 22 CFR 51.70 and 51.72. The principal law enforcement reasons for passport denial are a federal warrant of arrest, a federal or state criminal court order, a condition of parole or probation forbidding departure from the United States (or the jurisdiction of the court), or a request for extradition.
Yes, 22 CFR 51.72 says they can revoke for any of the same reasons they'd deny, including an outstanding federal arrest warrant. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.
As for how it interacts with asylum, well, it doesn't. If states had an obligation not to pursue or interfere with the travel of a fugitive seeking asylum, then take a guess what a lot of fugitives would do.
Generally if you're going to seek asylum, it's not the country you're fleeing FROM that facilitates your emigration, it's the country you're traveling TO.
Well, that's exactly what Snowden did, and got a travel document from the Ecuadorian embassy. But the surprising other half of the story here is that Ecuador revoked that travel document while he was in Moscow. THAT is arguably the main reason why he's in a bind right now, not that he or his advisors expected his US passport to remain valid, which is clearly revokable under the law in these circumstances.
Okay, thanks. I figured from what else I'd already researched and read that denial & revocation were essentially equal.
On the interaction with asylum, I did a poor job of being clear. I was wondering more about considerations of asylum given the current situation and the US revoking Snowden's passport. I'd already assumed that a country would revoke (although Snowden's a different kind of fugitive than, say, a murderer attempting to flee). Obviously, no country facilitates emigration of a person they wish to make a political and legal example of. Was wondering more if the revocation makes Snowden look like more of a case for political asylum, or less attractive for potential asylum granters.
The Ecuadorian revocation of travel documents--if their stated reasons are true--is certainly surprising (both for the revocation, and the political liability that they're assessing to Assange in relation to Snowden).
All that aside, revoking a standing passport just strikes me as a very dick move. Almost childish, even. It just screams, "Our allies aren't cooperating with us because we've been abusing them, so we'll just maroon the poor bastard until they cave cos they don't want to deal with him either." Not ineffective, but still a disappointing tactic from the administration.
Looks like it's routine to revoke the passports of wanted fugitives. It's not an administration-specific tactic, it's state dept. policy. So no, I wouldn't say that in itself supports or detracts from his appeal for asylum.
Ah, okay. That kind of makes it sound more like once charges are filed against a person, passports are revoked. I wonder how swiftly such action typically takes place in comparison to this action.
http://travel.state.gov/passport/ppi/info/info_870.html
So I think the passport revocation was in fact legal since there was a request for extradition and a federal warrant of arrest.