The Latvian Government has ordered all emigrants, temporarily in Latvia, unable to proceed to America to return to Russian before June 20th. The Latvian Minister of the Interior refuses to permit the emigrants to stay, calling them undesirable as citizens.
The steamship companies which have maintained a colony of 1,600 Russian Jews in Riga since the closing of the Russian immigration quota last September have notified the Latvian Government that they are not willing to pay further penal##ties in order to permit the emigrants to remain.
According to figures obtained from the steamship lines there are 6,400 Russian Jews who already have received American visas and are waiting for the opening of the quota in July. Large colonies are waiting at Riga, Kovno, Warsaw, Bremen, Hamburg, Cherbourg, Southhampton, Bucharest and Constantinople.
Since this fills the quota for the next four years under the law, the Baltic States have informed their Consuls in Russia, to refuse further transit visas for would-be emigrants.
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