In 1935, a federal judge in New York upheld an immigration officer's decision to deny the naturalization petitions of three Mexicans on the grounds that they were not white, but instead individuals “of Indian and Spanish blood." Whiteness, which had been a requirement for naturalized citizenship since 1790, remained so until 1940. If the 1935 ruling had been upheld, it would have rendered the majority of Mexicans ineligible for citizenship. President Roosevelt - who had only recently replaced American interventionist policies, such as the Roosevelt Corollary, with his own diplomatic approach of the Good Neighbor Policy - was concerned that denying Mexicans the opportunity to naturalize would hurt Mexico-U.S. relations. He thus urged the State Department to “quiet the controversy,” pressuring the judge to reverse the decision. The Labor Department issued guidance to its border officials that “in all future cases, immigrants be classified as ‘white.'"