The current problems with Cuba’s migratory policy (Part I)

By Jesús Arboleya Cervera

It is no secret that the topic of emigration has been at the center of the debates in Cuba for the past 50 years and that, at present, many believe that a profound review must be made of the way that Cuban policy deals with this problem.

It must be said that emigration is not, of itself, bad. On the contrary, from the beginning, man has been a migratory being. To a great degree, the development of mankind has depended on the ability of the human being to emigrate and adapt to every kind of climate, food and new social conditions. Today, it is a world phenomenon, closely related to the motivational factor derived from the unequal development of nations and the possibilities offered by the advances in transportation and communications.

This does not mean that emigration doesn’t also have undesirable consequences. The theft of talent, the drain of potential from a nation’s productive forces, the deterioration of the family institution, and the discriminatory treatment migrants get in the receptor countries are problems that affect all emigrants and the social whole of the poor countries.

Also, migration often is a function of the mechanisms of exploitation of workers in the receptor societies, where immigrants are taken advantage of to lower wages and dilute class conflicts. This encourages xenophobia, discrimination and hatred among countries.

In the case of Cuba, contemporary emigration – let us say, from the triumph of the Revolution until today – is intimately related to the policies conducted by the United States against the island, conceived to drain Cuba of its human capital, dismantle the social structure and create abroad the social bases for a counter-revolutionary movement that had no cohesion inside the island.

Cuban émigrés have fulfilled a counter-revolutionary function that explains both the exceptional treatment they have received from the U.S. government and Cuba’s policy in the face of such treatment.

Under U.S. pressure, a good many other countries joined that strategy, turning any emigrant from Cuba into a political refugee, something that enables anyone who requests political asylum to get it. Thus, for reasons that are not at all humanitarian, Cuban émigrés are the only people in the world to whom the label of “illegal immigrant” does not apply. That, along with the quality of those immigrants, is something that the Revolution should be thanked for.

Inserted into the conflict between the two countries, Cuba’s migratory policy has had an essentially defensive character that, although with shadings determined by circumstances, has arisen from premises that are still in force. Emigration is not convenient for the country, so to limit it constitutes a legitimate act of defense. And, even though it seems contradictory, once the person emigrates, it is preferable that he does not – definitely not – return.

The political conflict also has limited the natural contact between the émigrés and the Cuban society, although it is proper to say that the counter-revolutionary groups and the U.S. government are principally responsible for this situation. The truth is that the blockade and the rest of the U.S. aggressions against Cuba impede normal relations between the two countries, and the Cuban émigrés are included in this logic.

Considering that U.S. policy has not changed, what reasons could counsel a different vision of Cuba’s policy toward the problem of emigration? Let us say many, and I dare to cite some.

In the first place, the transformation of Cuba’s own reality. Today, the factors that determine people’s interest in emigrating are different; so are the relations of émigrés with Cuba’s society. No doubt, as in any other poor country, the economic factor constitutes the decisive element in the motivation of many people to emigrate. Although the illusion of a better personal realization is present, the economic factor responds not only to an individual interest but also to a commitment to the family that remains in the homeland. Under those conditions, it is impossible for Cuba’s society to identify the émigré as the enemy, as happened in the early years.

Such a transformation of the perception about emigration dovetails with the changes that have occurred in the social composition of the émigrés and their counter-revolutionary function. Unlike the earliest émigrés, who represented the most privileged sectors of pre-revolutionary Cuban society, the persons of popular origin that began emigrating in 1980 were formed within the revolutionary process and are therefore distant from the restorative neocolonialist project that has characterized the counter-revolution.

Thanks to them, the social base that has supported the counter-revolutionary movement abroad has been transformed. No matter what their differences with the regime in Cuba, in the case of the new emigration movement we are not in the presence of a conflict of classes, where the positions of both sides are irreconcilable. Although the weight of these persons is still not decisive in the political context of the Cuban-American community, their influence is noticeable in the balance of the existing forces, and an improvement of their relationship with their native Cuba could contribute to this trend.

Jesus Arboleya Cervera is a writer and a history professor.