Exiles Fear Impact of U.S.-Cuba Normalization on Benefits for Cuban Migrants
Latin American Herald Tribune - EFE
July 20,2015

 MIAMI – The normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba will mean the end, in the medium term, of the benefits received by Cuban migrants to the U.S., leaders of the Cuban exile community told EFE on Monday.

After half a century without diplomatic links, the U.S. and Cuba kicked off a new era Monday with the reopening of their respective embassies in Washington and Havana.

In this new scenario, the biggest worry for Miami’s large Cuban exile community is the possibility of legal reforms that will end immigration benefits for Cubans who come to the United States.

The head of the Democracy Movement, Ramon Saul Sanchez, told EFE Monday that while in the short term no changes will be made to the Cuban Adjustment Act, it seems probable that reforms will be imposed in the medium term and that Cubans will be included “in an overall law of comprehensive immigration reform in the United States.”

Another important member of the Cuban exile community, writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner, considers it “predictable that Congress will repeal the so-called Cuban Adjustment Act,” a law “based on the refusal of the Cuban government to take back Cubans who migrate illegally to the United States.”

That law, popularly known as “wet foot, dry foot,” allows Cubans who touch terra firma in the United States to remain in the country, while those intercepted at sea are repatriated to the island.

In Montaner’s opinion, it is highly probable that “the deportations of Cubans who have committed crimes on U.S. soil will begin, if Cuba authorizes it, in January 2016.”

By the same token, political analyst Eugenio Yañez said that while the opening of embassies does not entail the short-term loss of immigration benefits for Cubans, that abnormal situation “will have to disappear.”

“That is not going to happen immediately; the U.S. government has been emphatic about not modifying the Cuban Adjustment Act,” but this legislation will have to disappear “as relations are normalized” between the two countries, Yañez said.

Though the Obama government has said it will not change migration policies toward Cuba, the number of Cuban migrants who reached U.S. territory or tried to set foot on its coasts has multiplied by 120 percent this year over the same period in 2014, according to non-official figures provided by organizations of the exile community.

Ramon Saul Sanchez believes the growing number of Cuban migrants to the United States is due to their fear of losing the advantages of entering the U.S., because, “unfortunately,” the Cubans “are not being listened to about their needs and their voices are not being taken into account.”

“Cubans see no substantial change that will improve their lives” or dissuade them from going to sea and making the dangerous crossing of the Florida Straits.

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U.S. Could Deport 35,000 Cubans to the Island
Latin American Herald Tribune - EFE
July 18, 2015

WASHINGTON – More than 35,000 Cubans for whom deportation orders have been issued could be repatriated to the Caribbean island as a result of the renewal of relations between the two countries, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, told EFE.

According to ICE data, deportation orders have been issued for 35,106 Cuban nationals in the United States, of whom 162 are currently in custody and 34,944 are at liberty.

ICE also told EFE that, up to now, Cuba’s policy was to “occasionally” accept repatriations, including in criminal cases, something that could change soon with the new understanding between the two countries and the reestablishment of diplomatic ties.

A case apart during these years, ICE said, has been a specific list of Cubans that the governments of the island and of the United States agreed upon in 1984, and which includes 2,746 names of Cuban citizens to be repatriated.

Of those, most of whom migrated to the United States from the Cuban port of Mariel, 1,999 have already been repatriated.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will receive next Monday Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, the first time that a foreign minister of Cuba visits the State Department in more than half a century, the U.S. government said.

Kerry will not attend the formal reopening ceremony at the Cuban Embassy in Washington on Monday, but he will receive Rodriguez later at the State Department, where the two will give a joint press conference afterwards.

The Cuban government announced Thursday that Rodriguez will meet with Kerry next Monday, the same day the United States and Cuba formally reestablish diplomatic relations, broken off since 1961.

Kerry plans to visit Havana soon for a formal ceremony at the new American Embassy, the first visit to Cuba by a U.S. secretary of state since 1945.

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