Immigration regulations or outdated answers?

By Lorenzo Gonzalo

Cuba’s biggest problem with policies and regulations – both on immigration matters and in regulating the travel of Cubans abroad – lies mostly in Havana’s habit of producing them in response to Washington’s policies.

The immigration talks between both countries have been practically suspended since three airplanes broke into Cuban air space with subversive purposes and were shot down. That incident resulted in a long process of accusations by the Cuban authorities and may have uncovered a mixture of weakness and collusion between some U.S. organizations and the people who violated Cuban air space.

Once contacts between both governments were suspended after the incident, the path to the normalization of immigration became impassable.

As a response, Cuba penalized those who left the island illegally, forbidding them to return to visit their relatives. Havana’s reason basically was that Cuba wanted immigrations commitments to be observed and could not tolerate illegal departures.

That way, Cuba forced the U.S. to retain any Cubans reaching its territory. Besides, those people were protected by the Cuban Adjustment Act, which authorizes the right of permanence to any Cuban who steps on U.S. soil illegally.

Nevertheless, the provision that any Cubans intercepted in the high seas by the U.S. Coast Guard should be repatriated remained in effect. The reason for that radical response was that the talks were directed (among other objectives) to compel the United States to return any Cubans who enter that country illegally – at least those who cross the Florida Straits on rafters or with the aid of smugglers.

This wrangling between the two countries has excessively accustomed Cuba to act often with little independence from the actions of the United States. At least, that’s the feeling among many observers. Cuban authorities have occasionally expressed that it is important to act independently from the positions assumed by the U.S. administrations.

Statements like that reveal that Cuba’s behavior – acting in response, not taking the initiative – has somehow become a custom.

For example, when someone suggests the possibility of retiring to the island, the answer is that the U.S. Treasury Department does not authorize the transfer of retirement or Social Security funds to people who live in Cuba. Moreover, the USTD does not authorize retirees to receive their pensions in Cuba via any other way. In reality, this is not an argument to penalize those who wish to retire to their native country.

If there truly are conditions that allow people who worked for years outside Cuba to spend part (or all) of their time in their native land, that authorization should exist regardless of the fact that the U.S. does not grant it to Cuban émigrés living in its territory.

Some in Cuba say that that cannot be because it would cause resentment among the population. To find out if that’s true, a referendum would have to be conducted. Most Cubans do not resent those who left; they resent the limitations that the government imposes on emigration and travel issues. In social terms, a way must be found to translate this kind of temporal or permanent return into socially positive results.

Most of the Cuban emigration regulations now in effect are a result of United States aggression. But the social changes occurring on the island, with relation to the émigrés, allow a re-evaluation of not only the abovementioned cases but also of provisions that seem to be more capricious than aimed at protecting the national security or avoiding the breakdown of some social equalities.

Sensible policies (and Cuba is a great example of their adequate implementation) are those that respond to the realities of the moment. To materialize them is relatively easy. But to disassemble them after a period of time requires much skill. It is difficult. Above all, because society is not political and sees everything in only black-and-white. Nevertheless, when reality imposes itself, the political obligation must prevail.

When it began in 1959, emigration meant only exile. The history that followed and has been analyzed recently demonstrates that the stage of inevitable exile is over, and that “exile” at present is no longer the rule.

The task of reforming Cuba’s emigration laws is neither easy nor difficult. It is simply a question of dealing with it by forgetting the United States and the 1960s and ’70s. We need to think of the Mariel boatlift and the years since, to appreciate the new history that has been created to this date.

Let’s deal with that task before it gets any later. It is time to dump the outdated medicines and replace them with 21st-Century formulas.

Lorenzo Gonzalo is deputy director of Radio Miami.