Reports that the State Department has instructed the American consulate in London to cancel the visas granted to refugees from Nazi-held countries were denied today by official circles here.
It was authoritatively stated to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the State Department has instructed American diplomatic missions and consulates abroad to hold up the granting to “enemy aliens” of visas which had been provisionally authorized by Washington before America’s entry into the war, but not to cancel those visas.
“This ruling,” it was emphasized, “applies only to German, Italian and Japanese nationals, and not to citizens or subjects of nations now occupied by the totalitarian powers. Under this order, visas for ‘enemy aliens’ although previously approved here, must be reviewed and again approved by the inter-departmental committee on visas before diplomatic missions or consulates may grant them.”
The Washington office of the Hias, acting on the request of Mr. Isaac L. Asofsky, its executive director in New York, announced that it has been officially authorized by the State Department to deny the misleading report which is credited to a London newspaper.
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