150.01/806

The Cuban Ambassador ( Torriente ) to the Secretary of State

[Translation77]

Most Excellent Sir: My Government having heard of the amendment which the Honorable the Secretary of Labor, Mr. Davis, has proposed to make in the immigration law to the effect of setting a quota of admission into this country for Cuban immigrants,78 I have the honor, in compliance with instructions received, to apply to Your Excellency and represent that the institution of such restrictions [Page 213] with regard to Cuba might affect the commercial relations of the two countries and would greatly hamper the coming to the United States of thousands of Cuban citizens who are not immigrants, without any advantage at all in the way proposed by the Department of Labor inasmuch as very few Cubans do emigrate to this country.

In support of this statement I beg leave to call the attention of Your Excellency’s Government to the fact that in Cuba letters of citizenship are not issued to any but the foreigners who become naturalized in accordance with the laws and must add that the cases of fraud that have been brought before the courts have given rise to sentences in some cases and will surely lead to the same result in others.

I avail myself [etc.]

Cosme de la Torriente
  1. File translation revised.
  2. Communicated by Secretary Davis to Senator Colt, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Immigration, Dec. 31, 1923, and made public in the press, Jan. 2, 1924; it advocated application of the quota arrangement to Canada, Mexico, and South and Central America.