Our Immigration Policy Is Anything But Comprehensive
Among all the issues at the Southern border the stories of spiraling numbers of Cuban migrants are spawning confusion about U.S. immigration policies – and the politics behind them.
For decades, the United States’ varying immigration policies have always proved kinder towards Cuban refugees than those fleeing other countries. Demands of a politically potent anti-Castro Cuban community in South Florida have always demanded that those fleeing Cuba be welcomed if they could get to our shores by any means, legal or not.
Over years, the “wet foot, dry foot” policy meant that if Cubans fleeing in rickety boats and rafts could make it to the nearest Florida beach, they would have instant recognition as accepted refugees. The 1995 Cuba Adjustment Act even spelled out the rules that recognized that the U.S. was a way out of Cubans here for a year, including refugee benefits. Still, the Coast Guard was always on alert for those headed over the water towards Florida to turn migrants back before they landed.
In the last year or two, as visa requirements for Cubans to get to Central America eased, the numbers of migrants coming by land zoomed, joining the overwhelming number and mix of nationalities seeking to cross our border. That route, which starts with a flight to Nicaragua, and continues up through Mexico to the U.S. border is plagued by dangers and human traffickers.
The overwhelming totals have come amid a serious economic crisis in Cuba from the coronavirus pandemic, inefficiencies in economic reforms and a tightening of U.S. sanctions, which seek to pressure its government to change its model.
Specifics aside, the numbers from Cuba were up substantially. Our state and federal government officials are taking separate, seeming contradictory paths to deal with the results.
Two Divergent Fixes
Last month, President Joe Biden announced a new parole policy to bring down numbers at the border. Under the policy 30,000 migrants will be accepted each month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti – after applying for the program from their home countries.
Migrants request a permit, or parole, online before arriving with the sponsorship of a relative or acquaintance in the U.S. The migrants can stay for up to two years. Those who risk reaching the borders without permission would be deported and not be able to enter U.S. territory for five years.
There are still questions about the program, including how many people from each of the four countries will be accepted and what to do about migrants who already were on the move when the policy kicked in.
The Associated Press reports that Cubans who qualify for the program are responding “with zeal, launching a search for sponsors and long lines to obtain the appropriate documents.” The AP found that the postage stamps needed for the process have become scarce. On social media, word has spread about Cubans rediscovering distant cousins or previously unknown uncles in the United States, and the U.S. Embassy has warned Cubans to careful to avoid fraud or worse.
But In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last week activated the state National Guard to respond to an influx of hundreds of mostly Cuban migrants arriving by boat – about 4,153 in the last three months, according to border officials, and 500 in two days in Key West this month, according to the governor. In 2021, boat interceptions from Cuba were 838, says the Coast Guard.
Just for scale, the border police stopped 29,878 Cuban migrants at the land border in October 2022, 35,881 in November and 44,064 in December. Those arriving claimed economic asylum from worsening conditions in Cuba.
It may well be that many Cuban migrants lack either information about Biden’s new parole program or a required U.S. sponsor, but we’re still in the transition period.
Politics Only Complicate the Issue
In Washington, the Republican House is burying itself in hearings to criticize Biden’s administration for immigration rather than considering a comprehensive approach to repairing a broken system. The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration is negotiating an agreement with Mexico that could allow U.S. authorities to carry out large-scale deportations of non-Mexicans back across the border, though that likely would not affect Cubans.
DeSantis’ activation of National Guard will complicate water enforcement altogether – the National Guard supposedly has no role in federal immigration enforcement – and comes as much as a political attack against Biden as it does enforcement heft.
Among other things, we can’t determine what the National Guard is supposed to do, exactly, about boat crossings.
DeSantis is a likely 2024 presidential candidate who is picking cultural fights with Biden and Democrats, including sending flights of migrants – mostly Venezuelans in Texas — to places like Martha’s Vineyard. Just this week, DeSantis was asking the Republican-majority Florida legislature to broaden his powers to use state money to collect migrants even out of state who might otherwise head to Florida and send them to more identifiably Democratic cities and states.
Oddly, Cuban Americans are a politically powerful bloc of voters in South Florida that have overwhelmingly supported DeSantis despite his anti-migrant stance. DeSantis won the 2022 midterm Hispanic vote by 15-points, a huge portion of whom are Cuban-Americans, a historically conservative-leaning slice of the electorate. In addition, the annual Cuba Poll run by Florida International University had Republicans, including DeSantis, with near record support from Cuban voters.
Just why Cubans have held a better chance than other national groups of migrants seem related solely to hatred for Castro communism. Efforts by Barack Obama to re-calibrate U.S.-Cuba relations were halted when Donald Trump became president in 2016 and have never returned to any further thaw.
Still, understanding why migrants from Cuba should be treated differently than those from a leftist Nicaragua or Venezuela doesn’t make a whole lot of obvious political sense.
Meanwhile, one day last week, the Coast Guard returned 177 Cuban migrants who were caught at sea off Florida to Cuba, while about two dozen Haitians swam ashore in Miami from a sailboat and taken into custody. Good Samaritans among island beachgoers helped some of the migrants ashore with small boats and jet skis.
This is some comprehensive immigration policy we have.