Emigrants and Cuba’s future

If we analyze the critical path of Cuban policy towards emigration after the triumph of the Revolution, we can distinguish two stages determined by moments in which relevant qualitative changes take place in its objectives and its leadership. The current question is whether the country is facing the need to undertake a new phase in this process, and what it would consist of.

The first stage — between 1960 and 1978 — was a policy of rejecting emigration, and an absolute rupture with the country’s emigrants. This was a period when persons’ interests, culture, and class origins conflicted with the revolutionary process. Most of these persons emigrated. Under the auspices of the United States government, they made emigration the social base of the counterrevolution. It was the origin of the group now known as the “historical exiles.”

To the extent that emigrating was identified as an act of “treason to the homeland,” very harsh measures were applied against these emigrants, which included the confiscation of their properties and prohibiting them from returning to the country. It was considered a sin for a revolutionary to maintain relations with these “worms” or “turncoats,” even if they were very close relatives.

Although now looking back it might seem excessive, the moment was marked by radicalism, by the support of a good part of the Cuban population, the distancing of many emigrants — complete families — with the rest of the population, as well as by the rapid development of a different culture in the country. Most of these emigrants boasted of representing “the Cuba that left” and tried to reproduce it in Miami. The feelings of confrontation and hatred were mutual and are still a historical drag on the link between certain sectors.

The “dialogue with representatives of the Cuban community abroad” held in 1978 at the behest of the Cuban government, was a turning point in this policy and marked the beginning of a second stage characterized by the restart of contacts and a certain willingness to dialogue with emigrants. At that time the decision was made to allow visits to the country, suspended by both governments for almost two decades, and oftentimes intense exchanges took place in other spheres of national life, especially within families.

It is worth noting that it was not a policy conditioned by objective factors that made it urgent. It did not even come to satisfy a popular demand. On the contrary, the new policy generated opposition from broad sectors of Cuban society, especially from many revolutionaries who conceived it as a concession to the enemy. Rather, it responded to a sense of consolidation of the revolutionary process determined by the eradication of the internal counterrevolution, a better economic situation, the rise of Cuba’s foreign policy, and a good moment in relations with the United States.

Of course, by eliminating this conflictive issue and trying to neutralize the extreme right, among the objectives of the new policy was to facilitate the process of improving relations promoted by the Jimmy Carter administration. Cuba, though, insisted that it was more a matter between Cubans — and so it was. In this way, the Cuban government incorporated a nationalist sense into the process, emphasized by Fidel Castro himself, who classified the aim of the dialogue as a step that overcame class conflict, and made it more one of support for the Revolution. In fact, it was this strategic vision that saved the process from the setbacks that would lie ahead.

The first great trauma was the Mariel boatlift in 1980. Much has been written about this moment, and there are still stigmas regarding the composition of these people not justified by historical evidence. In any case, what is interesting to emphasize is that Mariel was the first sign that emigration had become an endogenous phenomenon of socialism in Cuba. The causes could no longer be blamed on the past, and statistically no other group of migrants has been more similar to Cuban society than the Marielitos.

The aftermath of Mariel was the U.S.-sponsored 1984 migration agreements, who feared new waves of uncontrolled migrants from Cuba. However, the characteristics of these agreements, their restrictive application by the U.S. government and the policy aimed at promoting social chaos in Cuba once the fall of the European socialist camp took place, stimulated the migratory explosion that gave rise to the 1994 rafters crisis.

It was a response to the economic crisis that the country was experiencing, considered the most brutal in the history of Cuba. One of its consequences was to definitively change the Cuban’s perception regarding the issue of emigration and relations with emigrants. He who emigrated to escape the crisis and help his family could no longer be condemned. From that moment on the migratory phenomenon covered the entire Cuban social fabric and a new type of emigrant, closely linked to the country for filial and cultural reasons, joined the emigrant ranks.

The 1994 migration agreements, again resulting from a migration crisis with the United States, allowed a certain normalization of the migratory flow despite the fact that U.S. policy continued, to some extent, to allow the practice of emigrating by illegal means. Although there were economic circumstances in the implementation of the 1978 policy towards emigration, the economy did not have the importance that it began to play starting in 1994, given the country’s economic situation.

Despite limitations and interruptions caused by the existing tension between the two countries, fundamentally speaking, the policy established in 1978 did not change the strategic objective of maintaining contact with emigrants, and maintained a continuity in its application that led to the immigration reform of 2013.

Officialdom justified it based on the social changes that had occurred in the ranks of the emigrants and the deterioration of their counterrevolutionary positions. However, they overlooked changes that had also occurred in Cuban society and the majority’s adherence to these reforms, which were indeed very comprehensive and entailed the solution, although partial in some cases, of a good part of the most pressing immigration problems of the policy at that point.

The reform ended with the elimination of the exit permit, considered a restriction of a citizens’ rights. It also did away with the practice of confiscating assets from those who decided to leave the country, equated the rights of new emigrants with the rest of Cuban society, restricted the concept of permanent emigration to those who did not update their situation after serving two years abroad, and facilitated circular emigration, as well as the return of those who had emigrated before 2013. It also implied a better treatment of emigrants, noted in the work of the consulates and the official political discourse.

Adopted with some delay, this reform was in response to a reality that was already evident and continued to worsen, namely, emigration had become an endemic problem for Cuban society with costs that were ultimately unsustainable for the nation if the necessary measures were not taken to mitigate them.

Currently the majority of those who emigrate are highly prepared working people. This has a tremendous impact on the economy, but also on the demographic balance and the rate of population growth. This reality has an impact on social stability, even at the family level, and it has political repercussions related to the dissatisfaction of the expectations of individuals, especially young people.

Cuba, by the very virtues of the system, produces human capital that the national labor market is not fully capable of satisfying, and this makes it a factory of potential migrants who are well received in most parts of the world, including to the United States, despite the limitations imposed by the Trump administration. On the other hand, the culture of globalization favors the tendency of Cuban youth to emigrate just as it happens in other parts of the world.

The definitive solution would be in the development and growth of the economy not found around the corner. Nor is it feasible to think about restricting the quality of human capital, inherent to socialism, or taking coercive action against emigration. A policy aimed at exchange with emigrants is not enough, as is the case today, but it is necessary to integrate them organically into the national life and take advantage of their possible contribution to the development of the nation.

This would consist of the beginning of a new stage in Cuban policy towards emigration, which would require establishing a legal framework where the rights and duties of emigrants were clearly defined; the mutual benefits that would be obtained from their participation in the country’s economy; the full integration of immigrants in scientific, cultural and sports activities; access to social benefits; laws for political participation, as well as the promotion of a culture of inclusion that facilitates this process.

Such a decision would not be strange to the changes underway and would cover aspects related to both domestic policy and Cuba’s foreign relations, especially with respect to the United States. It would also have political repercussions, some unwanted, as always happens, but a lesser evil if compared to the nation project that would count on emigrants and their descendants to help build the future of Cuba.