{"id":7418,"date":"2014-08-08T13:17:49","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T17:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=7418"},"modified":"2018-12-28T14:48:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T19:48:02","slug":"what-about-the-cubans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2014\/08\/08\/what-about-the-cubans\/","title":{"rendered":"What about the Cubans?"},"content":{"rendered":"
A comment in response to my blog about \u201cWhy Did They Come Now?<\/a>\u201d asked, What about Cuba\u201d The answer is: Yes, the Cubans as a group get asylum after getting into the country illegally. And, that is an incentive for them to come illegally seeking greater opportunity, just like illegal aliens from other countries.<\/p>\n So, why a different policy<\/a> for Cubans than for others? There may have been a reasonable humanitarian view that all arriving Cubans were political refugees<\/a> back in 1966 when the Cuban Adjustment Act<\/a> (CAA) was enacted in the aftermath of the Cuban revolution. But, even then, it was a mistake. Any law that exempts any large class of persons from the standard screening process under the immigration law that applies to all others opens a door to fraud and abuse by eliminating a careful case-by-case screening.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course there was persecution of persons who opposed the revolutionary Castro government, but that did not mean that all persons fleeing the country were persecuted. And, as U.S.-born children of Cubans and sometimes their parents now travel to Cuba as tourists, the hypocrisy of treating all Cuban newcomers as refugees is clear.<\/span><\/p>\n Why then are all arriving Cubans still given asylum a year after arrival? It\u2019s politics. So many of Cuba\u2019s wealthy elite fled to Miami during and immediately after the revolution that they formed a potent political force that especially resonated with national leaders who saw Cuba as a foot in the door of the Western Hemisphere by a Soviet client state (Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon) that today\u2019s political leaders remain reluctant to change the status quo.<\/span><\/p>\n