Report on Citizenship Law: Cuba restoration of lost citizenship. A commentator noted at the time: “in principle we support that, in order to recover citizenship, the latter can only have been lost for the causes determined in Article 7, and the same conditions are required as to acquire the naturalisation for the first time, as being located, the Cuban, for losing his or her condition as such, in the position of any foreigner, it is natural that he or she be considered like any other foreigner to the effects of acquiring our citizenship” (Vivanco 1902, p. 17). The designed procedure did not speak of marriage as a cause of loss or acquisition. The matter was regulated in the constitutional laws of 1934 (reformed twelve times) and 1935 (in force until the 10th of October 1940) —dictated by provisional governments without creating constitutional assemblies— which established that “foreign women married to Cubans by birth or naturalisation” could be Cuban citizens by naturalisation, “as long as they do not opt for their nationality of origin.” The prohibition of dual citizenship is still a common factor in Cuban constitutionalism. Likewise, these two norms established —in equal terms— that “the Cuban women married to a foreigner will always be considered Cuban”, when it was traditional practice to obtain authorisation on behalf of the husband to undertake acts related to citizenship. Since then, going through the Constitution of 1940, marriage has not conditioned the modification of Cuban citizenship. Enrique Gay Galbó commented in 1937 that the system established in 1901 should have accepted only one of two systems: to close the constitutional clauses of acquisition and loss of citizenship, or to leave their definition completely open to the legislator. The problem implied here was the “desirability” of a certain type of immigration (Cuba was a country of immigration until the 1930s14), and thus selectivity in the granting of citizenship. AfroCaribbean immigrants experienced several processes of expulsion, and Chinese nationals experienced great difficulties in legalising their situation15. Under the protection of the Citizenship Law of 1902, and Decree 859 of 1908, registration was established as well as the provision of valid documentary evidence of birth, but the procedure gave rise to fraud, such as the impersonation of names or other personal characteristics and extortion on behalf of officials. Faced with the pressure to regularise their situation and thus acquire citizenship rights —because the status matters— the process was abused. This was because the confirmation by witnesses to the veracity of what the applicant said was enough for the person in charge of the civil registry to consider it truthful and thus for the Secretary of State to have them deemed as legal. A “deplorable system”, according to Gay Galbó, was constituted (Gay Galbó 1937). In addition to the definitions of status, the 1901 text collected few cleavages on active 14 Latin America received discontinuous waves of immigration (above all between 1820-1930) from Europe and Asia (with higher marks between 1860-70 and 1930). Cuba was part of the process and received hundreds of thousands immigrants until this last date. 15 Among those expulsed were from the Caribbean such as the “jamaiquinos”. The process always had racial connotations. According to José Ignacio Rivero, director of ‘Diario de la Marina’, the prolific increase of blacks, who unlike whites did not restrict their natality, and the limitation of those immigrations that prevented “the influx of whites into the country”, helped by the law of the 50% of employment for natives, gave way to “a dark threat: that before a quarter of a century, blacks, with no economic strength or sufficient educational calibre [will have] outnumbered whites” (“No hay tal peligro negro.” Adelante 1. 4. 09.1935). In the case of the Chinese, they faced many problems with their regularisation. For example, Decree No. 458 of April 9, 1915 extended the period established by Decree No. 1223 of 1914 for the admission into the Republic of certain Chinese citizens. Decree No. 559 of May 8, 1924 suspended the issuing of visas for citizens with Chinese passports on behalf of Cuban consuls with the exception of the passports of diplomatic and consular officials and employees. Decree No. 573 of April 27, 1926 (which repealed Decree No. 559 of 1924) created a “Consular Visa Registry for Chinese Citizens” in the Secretary of State. 10 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/3- © 2020 Author(s)