Passenger X

Cuban law allows for residence abroad

By Manuel Alberto Ramy

HAVANA – At the intersection of 17th and K streets in the Vedado district, dozens of Cubans are standing in line. The line is not to purchase food at reduced prices. No. The occasion is the launching of a new emigration policy by the Cuban government.

Although it does not fulfill all expectations, the new policy to a great degree satisfies the needs of the citizens: it allows travel without permission and without the need for a letter of invitation from the country of destination. All that Cubans are required to do – like people anywhere else in the world – is to get a passport, a visa from the country they want to visit, and then go to the airport.

One of the men in line is not there to get a passport. “I came to renew mine,” he tells me. His name is X. He prefers to stay anonymous, for whatever reason. He is 53, medium height, heavyset, with close-cropped hair, trimmed perhaps to hide incipient baldness and gray hair. X is married, has two children by two previous wives. His work history is long and varied. He exemplifies the quest for work and the desire to improve the life of his family.

He has been a manager in several jobs, an investor in construction, director of a department in a state-run company devoted to the repair and maintenance of refrigeration equipment (“I became a technician in that specialty,” he says) but, because the wages were insufficient, he “worked on the left” [illegally] for years “until the changes began.”

For a long time he tried to make a living as a refrigeration and air-conditioning mechanic, but “that didn’t pay enough, and in order to fix the units we had to find parts in the black market … stolen parts.” He didn’t like that. Nothing new there; like X, many Cubans have lived their lives on the razor’s edge.

But it turned out that his grandfather was a Spaniard and in 2007 Spain announced that it would open its doors to the grandchildren of Spanish émigrés. X obtained a Spanish passport, with which he could travel to the United States through the Cayman Islands or the Bahamas and began a new career: he became a mule.

“Mules” are travelers who carry luggage or merchandise for others. Most “mules” bring goods from the U.S., where they live. X obtains goods in the U.S. and brings them back to Cuba, where he lives.

Hope

 “Cuba has begun to change. I am happy and know that I shall have an opportunity to start my own business. But in order to do that I need to make some money and wait for the changes to settle down and be more flexible,” he tells me, with the certainty of someone who has thought things out and laid out his course.

 “I’m not here to get a passport, only to renew mine,” he repeats. The document, which expires every six years, must be renewed every two years at a cost of 20 convertible pesos, also known as CUCs.

From X’s point of view, the passport is a way to end the zig-zagging of his life, because “I’m no longer here to bounce around. If the changes had been instituted earlier, I might be here now [at the Immigration Department] to arrange a holiday trip.”

He laments the slow pace of the reforms that the Cuban government is making (though “I agree with the reforms”) and refers not only to the emigration reforms but “to all reforms. We’re going to do something similar to what was done in China and Vietnam, where people no longer travel on bicyles. They tell me that over there there’s an abundance of Yamahas [motorcycles], cars and private businesses. And remember that Vietnam was razed” during the war, he points out.

X’s plan

His plan is to make this his final trip as a “mule,” because he wants to “wrap up” his return to Florida in the next few months. He has friends who have offered him jobs. “My plan is to go [to Florida] as a temporary worker” and work for just two years, which is the limit set by Cuban law to live abroad without being declared an émigré. Then he will return to the island and “if I come back with enough money to open my own business, fine.”

I point out to X that temporary foreign workers in any other country are paid less than native workers, mainly because they’re breaking the law. “I’m aware of that,” he says, adding that he will try to avoid any pitfalls. But, in case he can’t bring back enough money to open his own business, he will fly again to the U.S., “work a little longer and return for keeps. However …”

He smiles and explains his “however.” “During my stay [in the U.S.], I’ll try to get my residence papers. If I get them, well, I won’t have to travel via the Caymans or anywhere else. I’ll fly direct.”

X is aware that the new emigration law allows him to obtain residence in the United States country, live there for two years (minus one day), return to Cuba and go back to the U.S. the following day, if he so desires.

I look at him with interest. He is one of many who line up outside the Immigration Department offices throughout the island. They all have dreams, hopes of becoming temporary workers. Temporary residence is an ambition in the hearts of Cubans, as in the hearts of all other emigrants. “I shall return” is not just the lyrics of a tango by Carlos Gardel; it means a lot more.

“It’s my family, the neighborhood, MY neighborhood. That’s where the motherland is,” he says.