The Obama administration, in one of its final foreign policy initiatives, on Thursday ended the special status accorded migrants fleeing Cuba who, upon reaching this country, were automatically allowed to stay.
Cubans are still covered by the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which grants them permanent residency — a green card — after they have been here for one year. Until now, they were given temporary “parole” status while waiting for that year to pass. That will no longer be granted, making the act moot for most by denying them entry on arrival.
Effective immediately, President Obama said in a statement, “Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally . . . will be subject to removal,” treating them “the same way we treat migrants from other countries.”
More than a million Cubans have come to this country, many of them in vast exoduses by sea, since the island’s 1959 revolution. More than 250,000 have been granted residency under the Obama administration under the law, which can only be repealed by Congress.
The new rule on parole applies to Cubans attempting to enter the United States without visas by sea or by land through Mexico or Canada.
President Obama is ending a policy that allows Cubans who entered the U.S. without a visa to pursue residency after one year.
It ends the “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy, adopted by the Clinton administration in 1996 at a time when illegal seaborne migrants were flooding across the Florida Straits. That policy differentiated between those reaching U.S. soil — who were allowed to stay — and those intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard, who were returned to Cuba or sent to third countries.
The policy was agreed upon with the Cuban government, which issued a statement calling it “an important step in the advance of bilateral relations” that will guarantee “regular, safe and orderly migration.” The government has long complained about the special status for Cubans, particularly the “wet-foot, dry foot” policy, which it said encouraged illegal travel in unseaworthy vessels, homemade rafts and inner tubes.
As part of the accord announced in both capitals, Cuba will allow any citizen who has been out of the country for up to four years to return. Previously, anyone who had been gone for more than two years was legally said to have “emigrated.” The Cuban statement said efforts to “modernize” immigration policies would continue.
The White House described the changes as a logical extension of the normalization of relations with Cuba that began in December 2014, when Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro announced they would end more than a half-century of estrangement. Since then, U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations have been reestablished, and Obama has used his regulatory authorities to ease long-standing restrictions on commerce and trade, as well as travel by U.S. citizens to the island, under the continuing U.S. embargo.
The latest change comes as President-elect Donald Trump has indicated his unhappiness with increased Cuba ties and has threatened to reverse normalization. “If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal,” Trump tweeted in late November, after the death of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, the current president’s brother.
If he chose to do so after taking office, Trump could order the Department of Homeland Security to reinstitute special treatment for Cuban migrants.
Lawmakers long opposed to the new relationship with Cuba expressed displeasure at the new policy. “Today’s announcement will only serve to tighten the noose the Castro regime continues to have around the neck of its own people,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a statement.
“Congress was not consulted prior to this abrupt policy announcement with just nine days left in the administration,” Menendez said. “The Obama administration seeks to pursue engagement with the Castro regime at the cost of ignoring the present state of torture and oppression, and its systematic curtailment of freedom.”
Benjamin Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said that plans for the change were kept quiet in large part to avoid a new flood of Cubans trying to enter — many of them trying to beat a deadline they feared was the inevitable next step in U.S.-Cuba rapprochment under the current administration.
The total number of Cubans admitted after reaching here without visas by land or sea was 4,890 in 2013, according to Customs and Border Protection. In 2016, the number was 53,416.
According to the Coast Guard, 1,885 people traveling by sea have either arrived here or been intercepted — and sent back — in fiscal 2017, which began Oct. 1.
Thousands of others have joined a growing stream of Central Americans who have made the arduous journey through Mexico, often after paying hefty sums to smugglers, to reach the U.S. border. While Cubans have been allowed to cross, others, largely from Guatemala and El Salvador, have been turned back.
“The aim here is to treat Cuban migrants in a manner consistent to migrants who come here from other countries . . . equalizing our immigration policies . . . as part of the overall normalization process with Cuba,” said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. “Our approach to Cubans arriving [at the border] tomorrow will be the same as those arriving from other countries.”
Rhodes said the change was also justified because, while many Cubans in the past left the island “for political purposes . . . I think increasingly over time the balance has shifted to those leaving for more traditional reasons,” such as “economic opportunity.”
“That is not to say there are not still people who have political cause to leave Cuba,” he said. As with other countries, Rhodes said, “political asylum continues to be an option.” Adjudication of asylum claims of political or other persecution normally takes several years, allowing time to be granted a green card under the Cuban Adjustment Act before there is even a ruling on the claim.
The Cuban government continues to arrest dissidents and restrict civil liberties, including political and press freedoms. At the same time, however, it has slowly loosened its grip on the economy — allowing the growth of a private sector — and liberalized some other restrictions.
The new agreement also ends the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, adopted under the George W. Bush administration, which targeted Cuba’s policy of sending medical professionals abroad as a form of humanitarian aid by encouraging them to defect. The program allowed U.S. embassies abroad to accept them for U.S. migration.
A U.S. lottery that gives green cards to 20,000 Cubans on the island each year remains in place, Rhodes said.
Agencies/WP/Karen DeYoung/Internet Photos/ Excerpts/ Arnoldo Varona/ TheCubanHistory.com
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ESTADOS UNIDOS PONE FIN A LA POLÍTICA DE “PIES SECOS”, ‘PIES MOJADOS” PARA LOS CUBANOS.
El presidente Barack Obama ha decidido poner fin con carácter inmediato a la política de “pies secos, pies mojados” por la que, durante más de 20 años, prácticamente todo cubano que alcanzara territorio estadounidense podía quedarse en el país, aunque hubiera entrado de forma ilegal. El mandatario, en una de sus últimas decisiones al frente de la Casa Blanca, también ha ordenado el término de un programa que incentivaba que médicos cubanos, uno de los orgullos de la isla, abandonaran su país.
La decisión, que según anunció Obama en un comunicado tiene carácter inmediato, supone un cambio drástico en las relaciones bilaterales con Cuba.
“Hoy, EE UU está dando pasos importantes para avanzar hacia la normalización de relaciones con Cuba y darle una mayor consistencia a nuestra política migratoria”, dijo Obama en un comunicado. En su mensaje, y con miras al inminente inquilino de la Casa Blanca, el republicano Donald Trump, que ha amenazado con revisar las relaciones con La Habana, Obama defendió el acercamiento a la isla como “la mejor manera de garantizar que los cubanos pueden disfrutar de prosperidad, buscar reformas y determinar su propio destino”.
“Tal como dije en La Habana, el futuro de Cuba debería estar en manos de los cubanos”, subrayó el presidente demócrata.
La Ley de Ajuste Cubano de 1966 garantiza que todo cubano que entre al país de forma legal podrá obtener la residencia al año y un día de poner pie en territorio norteamericano. En 1995, tras el éxodo masivo de balseros de un año atrás, el Gobierno de Bill Clinton hizo un agregado a esa normativa que se pasó a conocer como la política de “pies secos, pies mojados”, que implicaba que todo cubano interceptado en el mar (“pies mojados”) era devuelto a la isla, pero que aquellos que lograran tocar tierra (“pies secos”) podían permanecer en EE UU, obtener un permiso de trabajo y unas ayudas iniciales y, transcurrido el año, pedir la residencia permanente.
Con la derogación de esta medida, “los ciudadanos de Cuba que intenten entrar a EEUU ilegalmente y que no cualifiquen para auxilio humanitario serán sujetos a ser devueltos a Cuba, en concordancia con las leyes de Estados Unidos y las prioridades en su aplicación”, enfatizó Obama. Además, pone a los cubanos en igualdad de condiciones con otros inmigrantes. “Al tomar esta medida tratamos a los migrantes cubanos de la misma manera que tratamos a los migrantes de otros países. El gobierno cubano ha aceptado el retorno de los ciudadanos cubanos que serán ordenados a volver a Cuba, así como ha venido aceptando el retorno de los migrantes interceptados en el mar”, explicó el presidente demócrata.
Se trata probablemente de la última medida que Obama, que deja la Casa Blanca en poco más de una semana, adoptará en el marco de la normalización de relaciones con Cuba iniciada en diciembre de 2014, una de las decisiones clave de su política exterior.
La suspensión de esta medida era una demanda clave de La Habana, que asegura que la política de “pies secos, pies mojados” incentivaba la emigración ilegal. Pero también había empezado a ser reclamada por los sectores anticastristas de Estados Unidos y algunos de sus representantes en el Congreso que afirman que la medida fue creada para ayudar a refugiados políticos pero que estaba siendo aprovechada de forma abusiva en los últimos años por cubanos que emigran solo por motivos económicos.
Por ello, según el senador republicano Jeff Flake, es una decisión que deberían saludar tanto los favorables como los críticos al acercamiento a La Habana.
“Individuos a ambos lados del debate EE UU-Cuba reconocen y están de acuerdo en que poner fin a la política de ‘pies secos, pies mojados’ va en nuestro interés nacional”, afirmó Flake, uno de los mayores defensores de la normalización de relaciones que critican muchos de su partido, incluido el presidente electo Trump.
Según Flake, que la víspera recriminó al nominado como nuevo secretario de Estado, Rex Tillerson, su reticencia a eliminar el embargo cubano, la decisión de Obama “trae a nuestra política hacia Cuba en la era moderna, a la par que permite que EE UU continúe su generosa actitud hacia aquellos individuos y refugiados con una demanda de asilo legítima”.
La llegada de cubanos a EE UU se ha disparado desde la normalización de relaciones. En 2015, llegaron 43.159 cubanos, un 78% más que en 2014. El año pasado fueron al menos 63.000 los cubanos que ingresaron en territorio estadounidense, la gran mayoría a través de la frontera con México. El éxodo de cubanos temerosos de perder este privilegio provocó de hecho a finales de 2015 una crisis en varios países centroamericanos que trataban de llegar por esa región hasta EE UU.
Agencies/ElPais/Silvia Ayuso, La Habana/Internet Photos/Arnoldo Varona/TheCubanHistory.com
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