As President Obama Visits Cuba, Congress Should Repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act, Says FAIR



cuba_painting_cc_flickr_zedzap_13281384943_rotator_lgPresident Obama’s visit to Cuba marks a historic rapprochement with that nation that should also signal the end to the half century old Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA), declared the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

The Cold War-era Cuban Adjustment Act created what amounts to a separate immigration policy for citizens of that nation. The Act provides immigration benefits to Cuban migrants not offered to citizens of any other country. Cuban nationals who set foot in the United States are allowed to remain and can adjust to permanent resident status after one year.

“As President Obama becomes the first U.S. leader to set foot in Cuba in nearly 90 years, it is also time for Congress repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act. While Cuba remains far from an enlightened democracy, the conditions that lead most Cubans to migrate to the United States are economic, not political,” argued Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “In that respect, Cuban migrants are no different from many millions of other people around the world who would like to settle in the U.S.” Read the rest of FAIR’s press release here.

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Content written by Federation for American Immigration Reform staff.

7 Comments

    • avatar

      nobody is against anybody nor Cuba…..is against a policy that has been unfairly left for too long unattended…

      • avatar

        the truth is that it is too late…..FL belongs to most Cubans now…..the laziest of immigrants…..well besides Somalis etc

  1. avatar

    and at the same time lift the embargo……about time those people have been already punished long enough……

  2. avatar
    George Fuller on

    THE WET FOOT / DRY FOOT POLICY is one of the dumber immigration policies the govt. has ever issued and should have been repealed a long time ago………but……once a law goes into effect getting rid of it is harder than having passed it.

  3. avatar

    Also, under the CAA, any person born on the Guantonimo Naval Base is also eligible for a US green card. For a time a whole bunch of Haitian refugees were housed temporarily at Gitmo. For those women who were pregnant and gave birth – their offspring were eligible for CAA green cards.

    Taking this a step further. Any child of a current detainee at Gitmo, born at Gitmo, is eligible for CAA green card. The children of terrorists. born in Gitmo, are eligible for CAA green cards.

    I mean, it’s really weird.