The warming relations between Washington and Havana are prompting thousands of Cubans to enter the United States illegally through Mexico, fearful that under normalized relations the U.S. will stop giving arrivals from Communist countries favored status.
The Migration Policy Institute reported this week that the rush to slip into the United States is roiling Latin American nations immigrants travel through, and now 3,000 Cubans are “stranded” on the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border.
Normally, those from Communist countries who get to the United States are granted legal permanent residency one year and a day after arriving.
Source: Migration Policy Institute
But under normal relations, the Cubans would be forced to comply with America’s more complicated immigration policies that can take a decade to get residency.
The group said that since relations warmed, some 27,000 Cubans have entered the U.S., a one-year surge of 78 percent. They come via foot because the U.S. has a practice of returning those who are caught at sea.
As a result, several Latin American nations are shutting down the transfer process and closing their borders to Cubans, according to the Institute. Their full report from newsletter is below:
As rising numbers of Cubans seek to enter the United States, apparently fearful that warming relations between the two countries will lead to revocation of uniquely preferential U.S. policies towards arrivals from the Communist country, more are being intercepted as they make their way through Central America.
An estimated 3,000 Cuban migrants remained stranded at the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border Monday. Nicaragua, which deployed its army as it closed its border with Costa Rica, defended its decision to bar entry to Cuban immigrants at an emergency meeting of regional ministers in El Salvador last week. Nicaragua closed its border with Costa Rica on November 15, saying Costa Rica had not warned of the large group of Cubans seeking to transit the country en route to the United States. Thousands of Cubans scrambled to find shelter at schools and churches along the Costa Rican side of the border. On Saturday, Costa Rica reported it had issued 3,853 temporary transit visas to Cubans in recent weeks.
The emergency summit brought together foreign ministers from the Central American Integration System (SICA) Member States of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama, as well as observer states Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Mexico, to discuss solutions to the crisis that began with the dismantling of a human smuggling network in Costa Rica. Member nations unanimously oppose U.S. immigration policy towards Cuba. Since 1966, Cubans who reach U.S. territory are allowed entry and granted legal permanent residency after one year and a day—a status shared by no other immigrant group. Those intercepted at sea are returned to Cuba, in what is known as the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which Cuba has long decried as a draw for illegal immigration to the United States. U.S. policy undoubtedly was raised during the biannual U.S.-Cuba migration talks which began Monday in Washington.
Since the normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations last December, Cuban migration to the United States has surged. Between October 2014 and June 2015, more than 27,000 Cubans entered the United States via ports of entry, a 78 percent increase over the same period a year earlier, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Check out this Policy Beat article for more on the implications of normalization.
Ecuador, with its liberal visa policy, has become a main transit point for Cubans. In an effort to regulate the flows, Ecuador announced Cubans would be required to acquire an entry visa prior to travel, effective today. This led several hundred Cubans to protest at the Ecuadoran Embassy in Havana on Friday.
Meanwhile, thousands of Cubans, with more arriving daily, remain stuck in Costa Rica, as Nicaragua refuses to establish a “humanitarian corridor” to allow them to continue their journeys, despite support from most regional leaders.
Zara Rabinovitch
Editor, Migration Information Source
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
