For years in the 1930s, ocean liners had little to no challenges when crossing the Atlantic Ocean and sailing towards South America with European immigrants aboard. Thus, when the SS Conte Grande ship left the Genoa port in January of 1939, its passengers were unaware of the obstacles that awaited them in Montevideo. Two months prior, and in a sudden twist of immigration policy, the Paraguayan Government declared that all passports issued after November 18th of 1938 were void. As a result, 264 passengers were stranded in Montevideo while the Uruguayan government devised a solution, and the ship carried on with its journey to Buenos Aires.[1] The Paraguayan government's response was that because these Jewish immigrants were not farmers, they did not fall into the category of European immigrants they hoped to attract. However, and as noted in several newspapers of the time, the fact that these Jewish immigrants were not farmers should have been known by consular officials at the moment of applying for these passports.[2]

While waiting in Montevideo, these Jewish passengers requested asylum from other South American countries such as Argentina. However, like Paraguay, they refused to take them in. Because the SS Conte Grande had docked in Montevideo, it immediately became an issue for the Uruguayan government. Dealing with their own immigration challenges, the Uruguayan government had to make the important decision of granting asylum or not to these Jewish immigrants. The Italmar Navigation Company, which owned the SS Conte Grande and managed all its trips, stated that the Italian Government would not allow them to go back.[3] Further complicating matters, Paraguay also remained silent and refused to validate their passports. Not being able to ignore the problem, Uruguayan authorities took this issue that divided its own society to the Parliament, and eventually voted to allow them to remain in the country,[4] with no commitments to accepting more Jews in the future. As for the SS Conte Grande, on January 18th, 1939, it sailed back to Europe, and unlike the infamous MS St. Louis which faced a similar fate in May of that same year, the 264 Jewish passengers aboard the Italian ocean liner were allowed to stay in South America before the war broke out in Europe. However, this did not end up being a lone incident. On June 2^nd, 1939, The Evening News from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, reported that three ocean liners, the Caporte, the Monte Oliva, and the Mendoza, encountered the same fate.[5] As in the SS Conte Grande case, the Paraguayan government refused to recognize their passports, and the 200 passengers were unable to land in Montevideo, which was supposed to be their land passage to their final destination, Paraguay. Unlike the SS Conte Grande, there are no more reports on what happened to these passengers. Similarly, other cases throughout Central America and the Caribbean (Costa Rica, Mexico, and Cuba) appeared in that same reportage. Thus, in 1939, denying the validity of passports seemed to have become a pattern in immigration policy in several countries of the Americas.