It is commonly believed that children of foreign parents born on the high seas under the American flag are as a matter of law “born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” but this is not clearly the case. As Borchard puts it, the child “is probably an American citizen under our law and may also be a foreign subject _jure sanguinis_.” Hence he would, upon attaining majority, have a right of election. QUESTION OF DUAL NATIONALITY Can a person gain a new citizenship without losing the old? The aspirant for American citizenship is required in both his declaration of intention and his final petition for naturalization to abjure in most specific fashion not merely all other allegiances, but most particularly that from which he has come. But the sovereignty thus repudiated is not always willing to be abjured, and international diplomacy has been in the past much occupied with the tangles growing out of the question of “dual nationality.” For one not uncommon example, the child of alien parents born in the United States and thereby under our law a citizen of this country, may be taken in childhood back to his father’s native land, and upon reaching military age may be summoned to military service. The United States has not been prone to defend such persons when their actual residence in the old country was clear, but it has been maintained that upon the attainment of his majority such a person has the right to elect and re-establish his American citizenship. The most common difficulties arise practically, however, from the fact that under the terms of his declaration to become a citizen of the United States, the alien repudiates his allegiance to his fatherland and its sovereignty, but does not gain, and cannot gain, for at least two years in any circumstances, a new citizenship. He has in most specific fashion flouted the government he had, but the government he desires to have will not protect him. For his practical uses, it is a question whether he has now _two_ nationalities or _none_! Moreover, there have been countries and times in which the right to change allegiance was altogether denied. In their attitude on the subject of voluntary expatriation the nations differ widely, and are divisible in this matter under three heads: those which deny the right altogether, those which permit it under certain conditions, and those which place no bar in the way. COUNTRIES DENYING THE RIGHT OF EXPATRIATION Under the old regime, the Russian imperial government laid a heavy penalty upon the Russian subject who returned to Russia after having been naturalized abroad without the imperial consent.[23]