The Joint Distribution Committee has arranged for the Portuguese liner Guinea to make a special call at Casablanca and pick up 200 refugees with American visas who were stranded there when the French ships in which they were proceeding to the United States were halted by orders from Vichy, it was disclosed today. The Guinea is expected to sail from Casablanca on July 17.
A delegate of the HIAS-ICA Emigration Association has left for Casablanca from Marseille to aid in the refugees’ departure and investigate the status of internees there, many of whom hold visas for Mexico and South American countries.
The J.D.C. and HIAS-ICA here are registering refugees who have been accorded, but not yet issued, visas and will submit their cases to Washington, where the new Interdepartmental Committee will in the future pass on all applications before consuls will be able to issue visas. In the future all affidavits must be accompanied by a full statement of the personal status and residence of all members of the applicant’s immediate family and detailed information on their political activities and background. The consulate in Marseille has stopped granting visas even to natives of France, referring all cases to Washington.
A delegation of relief agencies here is negotiating with the police, proposing release to a small town outside Lisbon of refugees who have been jailed for overstaying their residence permits, mainly because they did not receive promised visas. Under discussion also are arrangements for those now unable to comply with expulsion orders.
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