Cuba’s future relations with its emigration

Cuba’s policy towards emigration responds to basically endogenous factors, no matter the United States’ policy towards Cuba. However, it is still true that the ups and downs of U.S. domestic politics have always had an extraordinary influence on the behavior of the emigrants residing in that country and their positions with respect to Cuba.

An example of this are the changes that have taken place during the  Trump administration, as compared with the prevailing attitudes under the Barack Obama years, when conciliation policies between the two governments reached a high level of approval in the Cuban-American community. It is therefore worth analyzing the current attitudes and the changes that may take place if greater control of the pandemic and the eventual defeat of Donald Trump in the November elections, once again radically transform the scenario of future contacts of the emigration with Cuban society.

Around 80 percent of Cuban emigrants and their descendants live in the United States. Although less than half are concentrated in Miami-Dade County, the area has the peculiarity of hosting the so-called Cuban-American enclave. It cannot be said that what happens in Miami represents the ideas of all Cuba’s emigrants, not even those that reside in other parts of the United States, but this is where the national culture is most strongly expressed outside of Cuba and where the most important political movements have taken shape.

Less than two week ago, the fourteenth series of the Florida International University Cuba poll was released that deals with the political attitudes of the Cuban-American community based in South Florida. It is the most recognized of these investigations and can offer us clues of what is happening on a national scale.

According to this survey, a majority of emigrants who have settled in Miami-Dade County are strong defenders of Donald Trump’s domestic agenda, which distinguishes them from Latinos and other minority groups. The same could be said of support for the policy carried out against Cuba, which is supported by 66 percent of those surveyed.

Forty-five percent of those polled consider Cuba a threat to the United States. Although it might seem incredible to a reader less attentive to the U.S. reality, this criterion is still related to the affirmation, promoted by the Republicans, that Joe Biden is a communist manipulated by Castroism. In turn, 73 percent are in favor of applying pressure to achieve regime change in Cuba, as well as a significant decrease in support for relations between the two countries, which in 2016 comprised 72 percent of the population, although a small majority (59 percent) remains, which still supports this position.

Seventy-one percent think that the blockade against Cuba has not worked, but 60 percent support maintaining it. In 2016, this position had the support of only 34 percent of Cuban Americans in the county, indicating that it has doubled in just four years. However, it should also be noted that this result appears to be traversed by obvious contradictions: 70 percent advocate policies aimed at improving the living conditions of Cubans; 61percent favor the suspension of the blockade due to Covid; 69 percent advocate for the sale of food and 74 percent for medicine; all of which would strip the blockade of its most aggressive measures.

Regarding migration policy and travel, 65 percent support the reestablishment of flights to all provinces, 62 percent the reopening of the U.S. consulate in Cuba and the granting of visas in the country, as well as 60 percent the reestablishment of the Cuban Family Reunification Parole (CFRP) Program. This shows that, although it has not had a powerful public expression, the majority of Cuban Americans in the county reject Trump’s restrictive policy towards emigration and contacts with Cuba.

According to the FIU poll — at the county level — Donald Trump can obtain 59 percent of the Cuban-American vote in the November election, higher than the 54 percent achieved in 2016. However, if we take into account that George W. Bush obtained 74 percent support in 2000, and 78 percent in 2004, it can be said that the trend towards the systematic loss of the Republican vote has not been radically altered so far this century, with what this implies in their positioning regarding Cuba.

It is worth highlighting another aspect that underlies the survey. Although, as we have seen, support for relations between the two countries has decreased, this position is shared by 62 percent of those who emigrated after 1995, and 76 percent of descendants born outside of Cuba, the most dynamic sectors of that society. Although this should not be interpreted as demonstrating support for the Cuban system, it poses a substantial difference with the positions of the extreme right, which previously conditioned relations to the overthrow of the Cuban government.

A separate issue is related to the positions of those who have emigrated after 2010. Although the majority do not play a role in the election, because they are not citizens, they are the ones with the most family and friends in Cuba (92 percent) and those who travel the most to the country (88 percent), which gives them a special role in relations with Cuban society. There is also an active presence on social networks that indicates that a significant part assumes quite extreme positions of opposition against the Cuban government. The results of the FIU poll confirm this: 67 percent declare themselves in favor of Donald Trump and 73 percent support his policy against Cuba.

Such attitudes break with the pattern that identified new emigrants, say those after 1995, as more in favor of a climate of coexistence between the two countries. Apparently, the reasons should be sought both in the existence of a climate of greater political conflict in Cuba before emigrating, and in the vulnerability of these people to the political and ideological pressures of the Miami environment, especially those generated by the Trump administration.

Generally speaking, it is obvious that there has been some retreat to hard-line positions within the community based in the Miami enclave. However, if we put it in a broader perspective, we can see that, in the worst case scenario, we are in the presence of a ratio of 60 against 40, which was unthinkable two decades ago and that is what marks the political evolution of the Cuban-American community.

It also demonstrates that two factors have a considerable influence on these attitudes: on the one hand, the U.S. political climate and its policy towards Cuba; on the other, the Cuban policy towards emigration, which is based on the interest of the emigrants to interact with the country, in contrast to the interests of the Cuban-American extreme right and the advocates of the most aggressive actions against the island.