Overview

I was a Spanish and Portuguese major at the United States Military Academy a long time ago. In those days, I saw my future as five years of military services and then on to graduate school to get a degree in Latin American studies. As a cadet, I had my own subscription to El Diario Las Americas, the Miami-based newspaper that was and remains virulently anti-Castro and anti-communist. It helped me improve my Spanish.

As a child growing up in the Panama Canal Zone, I always had a curiosity in Che Guevara, “El Che”. His picture was on the public buses (“chiva”) and murals on buildings. By the time, I got to West Point, I was already into my “Latin Thing” with the Fania All Stars. Politically, it was an interesting time. The Sandinista regime had a strong link with the Castro brothers. The Castro regime was looking to export its influence through Central America.

Following the military, I ended up in Miami working in financial services and attending law school at night at the University of Miami. It put me right in the heart of things from a Latin perspective. Regardless of where I worked, everyone was Cuban-American and everyone spoke Spanish. Miami seemed to have Latin Americans from everywhere (save Paraguayans who seem to stay home).

In Miami, I had friends that were exchange cadets to West Point from Nicaragua who then served as the aide-de-camp of General Somoza. One time I ran into another old friend who was West Point exchange cadet from Honduras in Little Havana with her mother. Honduran newspapers would later accuse this former cadet of orchestrating an overthrow of the Honduran government with CIA assistance.

Every Latin American country seems to go through its own “up and down” moments politically and economically. When that happens, it is off to Miami, the capital of Latin American in the Latin Diaspora. As a “gringo” it is interesting to observe, the political attitudes of Latins particularly concerning immigration. For the most part, the Cuban-American community has traditionally been strongly Republican since the Bay of Pigs invasion.

The Cuban community has enjoyed tremendous success in the United States politically and economically. The rest of the Latin Americans are generally Democrats. One of the lines of demarcation between the Cubans and the rest of the Latin American community is the continuation of the Cuban Adjustment Act. Even after the end of the Cold War and the normalization of relations, the Cubans still have a deal that no other group of Latins from politically troubled countries that abuse human rights as badly as the Castor brothers, enjoys.

This article is intended to highlight the incongruence between the immigration treatments of Cubans versus the rest of Latin Americans. In reality, the Cold War ended in 1991.  On December 17, 2014, President Obama announced his intent to begin the process of normalizing relations with Cuba. The U.S. fully normalized relations on July 20, 2015. American airline carriers are set to have as many as 300 flights per day to Cuba any day now. American-citizen Cuban refugees are able to visit Cuba freely. In April 2016, an official from the US State Department declared that Washington was not planning to change the law that was enacted back in the days of the Cold War that grants Cubans special immigration benefits, despite the move towards normalized US relations with Cuba spurred on by President Barack Obama.

A Senate subcommittee hearing heard from the States’ Bureau of Western Affairs principal deputy assistant secretary, Francisco Palmieri, who claimed that Cuba continues to have problematic human rights and economic conditions which result in continuing large numbers of immigrants coming to the United States from the country and that there are no current plans to alter the Cuban Adjustment Act. It would be interesting to see how human rights and economic conditions in Cuba currently compare to human rights violations in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras or the rest of Latin America.

It is interesting to me that in the midst of immigration reform with the so much discussion on the Wall (that Mexico is going to pay for!) and curbing the flow of Syrian refugees, and Central American families held in detention for excessive periods of time, that the immigration status for Cuban refugees continues as usual with political refugee status.

Summary of Significant Legislation Impacting Cuban Refugees

The original Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 allowed Cubans to become permanent residents if they had been present in the United States for at least two years. The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1976 reduced this time to one year. Generally, Cubans are exempt from any immigration quotas, and are also exempt from the following requirements which are imposed on most other immigrants: (1) Showing a family-based or employment-based reason for residency (2) Entering the United States at a legal port of entry; (3) Not being a public charge.

In 1994 and 1995 significant migration accords between the two countries, established the current “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy. Unless Cuban refugees cite fears of persecution, Cubans intercepted at sea are returned to Cuba, where the Cuban government, per signed accords, cannot retaliate against them, while those who reach the United States are generally permitted to stay and may adjust to permanent resident status after one year. Cubans stopped at the U.S. border will be paroled into the United States.

The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1996 (CAA) provides for a special procedure under which Cuban natives or citizens and their accompanying spouses and children may get a green card (permanent residence). The CAA gives the Attorney General, the discretion to grant permanent residence to Cuban natives or citizens applying for a green card if: (1)They have been present in the United States for at least 1 year; (2)They have been admitted or paroled; (3)They are admissible as immigrants

In 2007, the passage of the Cuban Family Reunification Parole (CFRP) Program allowed certain eligible U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to apply for parole for their family members in Cuba. If granted parole, these family members may come to the United States without waiting for their immigrant visas to become available. Once in the United States, CFRP Program beneficiaries may apply for work authorization while they wait to apply for lawful permanent resident status.

How does this benefit Cubans? As refugees, Cuban immigrants received $630 million in government financial aid including social security, temporary assistance for needy families, refugee cash assistance, cash and medical assistance. So you thought that Central Americans and Mexicans were the only Latin Americans coming through the Mexican border? Wrong! Unlike other immigrants caught at the border who get detained and deported, the Cubans detained and paroled into the United States, released and become permanent residents a year later.  

New migratory regulations in 2012 applied under Raul Castro’s government allow Cuban travelers to remain abroad for 24 months without losing any of their rights as Cuban citizens, something which allows those who visit the United States to avail themselves of the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) and secure legal residency in the country before returning to the island. Tens of thousands of Cubans have become Spanish citizens clearing the path to visit the U.S. on a tourist visa and then apply for benefits under the Cuban Adjustment Act. 

Last year more than 43,000 Cubans entered without visas (three-quarters of them having come through Mexico), up 78 percent from the previous year and a six-fold increase from the start of the Obama administration. Since 2005, the numbers have averaged approximately 10,000-15,000 per year. As early as 1999, as many as 3,000 Cubans per year were crossing the Mexican border. Crossing the border became a better solution after September 11^, 2001 when security background checks for in-country processing became more difficult. Needless to say, there is a “run on the bank, i.e. to enter the United States, anticipating a future change in policy.

Immigrants who weren’t born in Cuba, who never spent a day in Cuba and never suffered under the Castro government are able to benefit from the Cuban Adjustment Act as political refugees if one their parents was Cuban. Cases using a grandparent as the only link to Cuba have also been approved. A Cuban who lived comfortably in Madrid for 20 years can come to the U.S. and get a green card and federal benefits. Venezuelans represent approximately twenty five percent of the non-native Cubans qualifying for benefits.  

Summary

In the midst of Presidential elections, and discussion of immigration policy between the two candidates, the silence is deafening on U.S. immigration policy towards Cuba. While Donald Trump talks about deporting eleven million undocumented immigrants from everywhere besides Cuba, and building a Wall (that Mexico will pay for!), Hillary Clinton talks about a path towards legal residency.

The U.S.  Immigration policy towards Cuba, outlived its original purposes when the Cold War ended in 1990, twenty six years ago. During the same time period, the U.S. was able to normalize relations with every former member of the Warsaw Pact countries as well as Vietnam. No one from the Eastern bloc nations got a special deal to come to the United States.

The ability of Cubans to live outside of Cuban in places like Mexico and Costa Rica and seek parole to the U.S., gives them an immigration advantage that no other Latin American immigrant is able to enjoy. The ability for immigrants living outside of Cuba with no connection to Cuba other than a Cuban parent or grandparent, to obtain U.S. immigration benefits, is obscene.

In the meantime, the tough stance on immigration within the mostly republican Cuban-American community is hypocritical with a capital “H”. It is not a matter of begrudging the benefits that Cubans received in the heyday of the Cold War. The policy today should reflect the reality that Cuban immigrants today and since the end of the Cold War, have been no different than any other immigrant from Latin America. It could be argued that Latin American from a number of countries suffered human rights violations that far exceeded the plight of Cubans over the same time period.

Perhaps, in the negotiations regarding payment for the construction of the Wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, the federal government could spend a few moments and correct the lack of parity in the immigration treatment of Cuban immigrants and the rest of the Latin Americans.