The Cuban Adjustment Act: When the situation soured

HAVANA — The incident created by more than 1,000 Cuban emigrants who are marooned in Costa Rica as a result of the Nicaraguan government’s refusal to allow them transit toward the United States (their ultimate destination) has caused a big stir.

Whatever the circumstances, using force to halt them was a reprehensible measure. The migratory problem is a conditioned phenomenon for systemic reasons. It must be dealt with by the governments involved through adequate policies that guarantee humane treatment for the migrants, who are really the victims of trafficker networks and the corruption of the authorities involved in these practices.

In reality, this event constitutes a problem a lot more complex and widespread than what the press has conveyed until now. If the incident that occurred on the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border has had so much display in the media, it’s because it involves Cubans. Unfortunately, even more serious events occur every day involving other irregular emigrants from Latin America who hope to settle in the United States.

Even if they manage to survive the journey and cross a border guarded by armies, walls, satellites and drones — even paramilitary militias engaged in “hunting” them — they later become victims of a ferocious discrimination that proposes to fling them back over the wall, as Donald Trump and a considerable number of Americans have proposed.

Cubans are the exception. If they manage to reach the U.S. border, they are admitted automatically and, after one year in-country, can appeal to an Adjustment Act that applies only to Cubans and guarantees them very generous aid so they may settle in, and later integrate into, U.S. society.

I am not an opponent of the Adjustment Act. Rather, I believe that it should be applied to all immigrants, among other reasons because it has demonstrated its effectiveness in attenuating some of the serious problems faced by U.S. society as a result of the immigration problem.

What’s politically noxious is its exceptionality and the fact that illegal immigrants can benefit from it. They use this means simply because the U.S. denies them entry through legal mechanisms while it accepts them by virtue of the dry-foot-wet-foot policy that grossly manipulates the Cuban migratory phenomenon. It stimulates the illegal emigration that it pretends to bar through other means.

For years, Cuba was criticized for limiting the emigration of its citizens, but — from the very moment when the 2013 Immigration Reform established that freedom — Washington’s first reaction was to express its “concern” that such a possibility might be used by illegal Cuban migrants to enter the U.S. through third countries, utilizing the same route that millions of other Latin American migrants have traditionally followed.

That’s what indeed happened, for the simple reason that migrating by sea, as had been done theretofore, implied the risk of being returned to the island if they were intercepted before stepping on U.S. soil, increasing the risk of the operation and the chance of losing the large sums of money that the traffickers charge for the voyage.

To some venal Latin American functionaries, allowing the migratory flow through their territory toward the U.S. means good business, without implication for their countries and with a lower risk than drug trafficking, although sometimes both activities are combined.

That’s why the U.S. has been pressuring the countries in the region to halt that practice, whether it involves Cubans or other nationalities.

That U.S. pressure — not a Cuban conspiracy — invented by some feverish news media that talk about the presence of agents provocateurs and cite “anonymous Latin American diplomatic sources” to confirm their statements is probably the cause of the incident that occurred in Costa Rica.

Unfortunately, I don’t have anonymous diplomatic sources, so my theory is that, to satisfy U.S. demands or for some other reason, the government of Costa Rica dismantled one of the trafficker networks that operated on its soil and left the Cuban migrants marooned there.

When “things soured,” the Costa Ricans granted the Cubans permits of transit — something unusual when a traveler doesn’t have an entry visa for his country of destination. That way, they could “pass the buck” to the Nicaraguans, who, based on their laws and protecting their own interests, decided not to allow the Cubans in.

In an official communiqué, the Cuban government criticized the application of the so-called “dry-feet-wet-feet” policy, adding that “this policy encourages irregular migration from Cuba to the United States and constitutes a violation of the letter and spirit of the Migration Accords in force, whereby both countries assumed the obligation to ensure a legal, safe and orderly migration,” which has been Cuba’s historic interest and is surely included in its negotiations with other countries.

Even more important, because of its novelty in relation to the policies applied in the past, the communiqué states that “the Cuban authorities have remained in permanent contact with the governments of the countries involved, aiming to find a quick and adequate solution that takes into consideration the welfare of the Cuban citizens.”

It also reaffirms that “the Cuban citizens who have left the country legally and comply with existing immigration legislation are entitled to return to Cuba, if they so wish.”

Seen with the objectivity required by the facts, once Cuba decided to liberalize the possibility to emigrate, the country of destination chosen by the emigrants is unimportant. The objective is to prevent emigration from becoming a factor of internal social destabilization and triggering potential conflicts with other countries, the U.S. among them.

Cuba’s new migratory law is not “mainly responsible” for today’s events, as some have stated. We are talking about legal emigrants who traveled to their first destination with their documentation in order and the authorization of the host country. They enjoy the protection of Cuba, even if they have broken the laws of other countries — as happened in this case — and may return to Cuba if they so desire.

Nobody has applied as a “refugee,” as the United Nations describes that status, and I imagine that those who don’t want to return do so in the hope that the “exceptionality” that characterizes Cuban emigration will continue to rule, and that “someone” will solve the problem.

Either that or they don’t want to lose the considerable amount of money that the adventure implies — one of the many adventures that usually are organized and funded from Miami.

One of those migrants, interviewed by Progreso Weekly, expresses a clear desire to avoid doing anything that might compromise her future visits to Cuba, a pattern that compares her to any other Cuban emigrant in recent years.

Truth is, I’m not very optimistic about a prompt solution to the problem created in Costa Rica, unless these people decide to return to Cuba. I doubt that the United States will allow the creation of a precedent that legitimizes a route of illegal immigrants through Latin America, with consequences that will greatly affect the problem of Cubans.

And I doubt that Costa Rica, or any other Latin American country, will be willing to accept them, among other reasons because some of them have said that that’s not what they want.

Looking to the future, the problem is a lot more serious, and we’ll surely witness other incidents that hopefully will not have consequences worse than those in this case.

Although it would be a great step forward in bilateral relations, not even the adoption of agreements between Cuba and the United States that eliminate the existing impediments to a “legal, safe and orderly” emigration will definitely resolve the problem of the illegal emigration by Cubans.

Its causes, same as happens in the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean and even worldwide, can be found in an asymmetric and unfair international order that fosters emigration, as it does many other social problems in today’s reality.