Julio César Guanche because a rigorous criterion of selectivity is applied29. For example, the Law of January 18th, 1961, amending provisions for the grant of Cuban citizenship contained in the Fundamental Law of 1959, stipulates that the “foreign citizen of a nation of America in which exceptional conditions concur recognised by express agreement of the Council of Ministers”. In this way, Cuban citizenship was granted in an “exceptional” manner to the Puerto Ricans Laura Meneses de Albizu Campos and Juan Juarbe y Juarbe in 1961. The Constitution does not make a distinction between nationals and naturalised regarding the equality of citizens, but the regular practice has been to grant “settled” foreigners permanent residence and not citizenship. The latter grants them the same rights as Cuban citizens, except political rights. To acquire residence, the requirements of Decree 358 of 1944 are taken into account: Foreigners who after five years of continuous residence in the territory of the Republic, and no less than one of not having declared their intention to acquire Cuban citizenship, obtain the citizenship card according to the law, provided they know the Spanish language (Article 8 a), and the foreign man who marries a Cuban women, and the foreign woman who does so with a Cuban man, when they have a child of that union or they have two years of continuous residence in the country after marriage (Article 8 b). With permanent residence foreigners retain their citizenship of origin, and, if they fail to meet the requirements, they may lose permanent residency. Neither marriage nor its dissolution affect the citizenship of the other spouse or the children. (Constitution, Article 31). 6.2. Loss of citizenship (Constitution, art. 32) Automatic renunciation is not accepted. An administrative decision of the competent authority is required by ministerial resolution, dictated on a discretionary basis. Only in this case is a change of citizenship is admitted. The causes of loss of citizenship established in the 1976 Constitution had a prior tradition in the following cases: acquiring a foreign citizenship; serving another nation in military functions or in the performance of positions that carry authority or jurisdiction —now “without permission of the Government” instead of “without permission of the Senate” as in 1940, since the 1976 text established a unicameral parliament; those who in any foreign territory conspire or act “against the people of Cuba and its socialist and revolutionary 29 The need to grant citizenship by naturalisation was justified as follows in 1982: “To have a vision of the importance of this activity, it is good to point out that there are several thousand foreigners in our country, most of whom have a permanent residence and settled here several decades ago. We must not forget as factors that lead to this situation that the liberation of our country from the Spanish yoke did not mean at any time an exodus of the peninsulars, to the contrary, the affective and family ties between them and their descendants and other relatives were always very close, as well as different reasons in Spanish national life, a considerable migratory flow continued moving towards our country even after independence. On the other hand, during the years of the pseudo-republic, the need for cheap labour to work in our sugar harvests also gave rise to a considerable contingent, mainly from the area of Latin America and the Caribbean, which over time have become permanent residents. Similar examples can be put with Chinese immigration, which was during the colony and the pseudorepublic a considerable injection for our population. We cannot ignore either that the political and social conditions created by the Revolution also attracted our country to a number of citizens of other countries such as Latin Americans persecuted by their governments, European technicians attracted by the collaboration with our country, etc., many of which over time have formed families and have settled permanently in our Homeland”. (Faife León 1982, p. 45) RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/3 - © 2020 Author(s) 23