The return to liberal democracy in Portugal led to the independence of its overseas colonies in 1975. By July 1975 around 80,000 Portuguese Mozambicans were left in the country from around 250,000 that lived in the country in the early 1970s. Of the 80,000 only around 10,000 opted for Mozambican citizenship instead of Portuguese citizenship. The most decisive factors for the preference for white emigration according to US diplomat William Jacobsen was a "combination of doctors leaving for good, plummeting standards of medical care... and uncertainty about country's willingness to allow Mozambican citizens to leave national territory."