Thread: Cubans enter United States in large numbers

Cubans enter United States in large numbers
Guillermo I. Martinez

Columnist

November 8, 2007

Newspapers and wire services have been reporting on this story in bits and pieces.

Some stories talk about the growing number of Cubans who now make the long journey to Mexico and then over land to the U.S. border. Others talk about the small groups who arrive overnight in the Florida Keys, probably brought in by human smugglers.

Still, a third group addresses the issue in diplomatic terms. Cuba accuses the United States of not granting the 20,000 visas annually promised under the 1995 immigration accord between the two countries.

All these stories, and none put the issue in context; none said that this immigration is also out of control and presents a danger to the United States.

I finally saw it in black and white last week in a staff report of the Cuba Transition Project of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. The report was titled: Coming to America: The New Cuban Migration Crisis.

The numbers are staggering. At the current rate of approximately 38,000 per year, by the end of the decade ending Sept. 30, 2009 (migration statistics are kept by fiscal year), 267,000 new Cuban immigrants will have arrived in the United States. This is more than in any other decade over the last 50 years!

How could the numbers be so large without anyone raising their voice to question the policy? The answer is simple. Cubans have a special status as refugees once they step on U.S. soil; and the Clinton administration agreed in 1995 to grant up to 20,000 visas annually, for Cubans with or without relatives in the United States.

It started in 1966 when The Cuban Adjustment Act gave virtually all Cubans who landed legally in the United States the right to become a resident alien if they stayed in the country 366 days. This was granted to Cubans because they were fleeing Communism. A similar program was enacted years earlier for Hungarians fleeing their country after the anti-communist uprising of 1956.

The only substantial modification to the Adjustment Act came under the Clinton administration when the Cuban government stopped guarding its shoreline and allowed anyone who could construct a contraption that would float to try and make it across the Florida Straits.

That is when the administration decreed that those who made it ashore could stay and those captured at sea would be returned to Cuba. In exchange for accepting the return of its captured fleeing citizens, Cuban demanded the United States grant the island 20,000 visas annually. That was supposed to stop the illegal migration.

But it hasn't.

Now we have those who are risking it all aboard makeshift boats trying to cross the Florida Straits. We have families paying smugglers up to $10,000 a person to pick up relatives in Cuba. We have those who come legally, claimed by a close relative. We have the visa lottery of up to 20,000 a year. And recently, a new route via Central America and Mexico has been opened to those who have relatives willing to pay. Once the Cubans cross the border they are covered by the Cuban Adjustment Act.

In FY 2005, 36,261 entered the country with a right to legal residency. In FY 2006, the number jumped to 45,614 and a preliminary count for FY 2007 says 31,312 came in — although this last number probably will be much higher when the final count is in.

The UM study puts these figures is perspective.

"In fact, more Cubans are now entering the United States — legally and otherwise — than at any other time since the Freedom Flights of the mid-1960's, through the early 1970s," the report says.

Soon the number of Cubans who have arrived post 1980 will almost equal those who fled in the first 20 years of the Castro dictatorship.

The Cuban government has always used its citizens as weapons to threaten the United States. When in 1980 Fidel Castro permitted 125,000 Cubans to leave through the Port of Mariel in five months, it was an act of war. The same can be said in 1994 when it allowed all Cubans who wanted to leave the island to do so in what we call the "rafters cisis," whichsaw more than 38,000 come in a few short weeks.

The 1995 immigration accord was supposed to stop the unrestricted outflow by granting 20,000 annual visas. Now we have both.

It is time for the exile community and the U.S. government to re-examine this whole issue. The policy is broken and needs fixing.

Guillermo I. MartÃ*nez is a journalist living in South Florida. He may be reached at guimar123@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinio ... 776.column

All these stories, and none put the issue in context; none said that this immigration is also out of control and presents a danger to the United States.

Thank you, Mr. Guillermo Martinez for saying what needs to be said, Sir.