Once Obama announced that we were going to be on good terms with Communist Cuba, I wondered what it would mean for the tens of thousands of so-called Cuban refugees we have been taking in over recent years.
I would think the whole Cuban resettlement would come to a grinding halt since love was in the air between our country and theirs.
Sec. of State John Kerry in Cuba last week. We are now pals with the Cuban government. So this should mean that no more ‘refugees’ need to come to the US from Cuba! Right!
Apparently Cubans wanting out saw the writing-on-the-wall and expedited their travel to America. Here, according to Breitbart (hat tip: Joanne):
The United States is experiencing a massive surge in the number of Cuban refugees risking their lives to reach American shores, following President Obama’s announcement that the White House would legitimize the communist Castro regime by reestablishing diplomatic relations.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is reporting that 23,978 Cuban refugees arrived in the United States between October 2014 and May 2015, with another 3,564 Cubans attempting and failing to reach U.S. shores. Most of those arriving successfully crossed the southern border with Mexico or crossed the straits of the Caribbean separating Florida from Cuba. The number of Cubans arriving in the past eight months is significantly larger than the number that reached the United States throughout all of the 2014 fiscal year: 22,162.
In January, officials reported experiencing a major spike in Cuban refugee migration between December 2014 and January 2015, in the immediate aftermath of President Obama’s announcement of normalization of relations with the Cuban regime. Coastal officials recorded a 60% increase in the number of Cubans traveling to the United States in the last trimester of 2014, but a 117% increase in migration when comparing December 2013 and December 2014.
Read it all.
I know from past research that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is paid (by you) to help the Cubans resettle, but I think others of the nine contractors get a cut of the federal dole to help bring Cubans to your towns.
Getting away from Muslim migrants for a moment, we have a story this morning about how federal refugee resettlement contractor (one of the big nine***), Church World Service, helps Cubans who are ECONOMIC migrants, not refugees, get settled in America.
Miguel Laguna, a caseworker at Church World Service, a refugee resettlement agency, runs an orientation class about life in the US for a newly arrived Cuban family. Credit: Monica Campbell http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-01-22/youre-cuban-youve-reached-us-boat-now-what
I’ve been wondering lately what Obama’s change in US/Cuban relations will have on the thousands and thousands of Cubans still arriving in the US under that ridiculous “wet foot, dry foot” policy.
If we normalize relations with Cuba, why would there be any “refugees” coming here? Or, will his policy simply open the pipeline completely for one and all to fly right in?
A refugee by definition is escaping persecution. People wanting a job and social services are economic migrants and not eligible for refugee status (unless you are Cuban of course).
They are coming here for American jobs! Remember! Your tax dollars pay for most of the services of Church World Service! See how much here.
Here is the story from PRI.org (emphasis below is mine):
Forget for a second that you live in the United States, that you know its laws, know English, know what a Social Security number is, let alone worrying about having one.
Now imagine that’s the wave of information you are trying to absorb, quickly, in a small conference room in Miami. That’s exactly what happens to some families when they arrive in the United States.
Miguel Laguna helps guide them through the bewildering process. He’s a caseworker at Church World Service, a refugee resettlement agency with an office in the Miami area. Most of the Miami office’s clients are Cubans. [Miami office website is here–ed]
Laguna goes over with the family how to take the bus, apply for citizenship and where to study English. It’s a lot to take in.
[….]
Ramos sits with his wife, Ailén, and his son, also named Ismael. The family tells me it took two days and two nights in a small boat to reach Florida. They got lost in the Gulf of Mexico, but eventually made it. “The GPS broke, so we didn’t know where we were for a while,” Ailén says.
They say they left Cuba because there’s no work there. Ailén says she was a gym teacher making $12 a month, a pretty typical salary in Cuba. The family thought of leaving for years, but sped up their plans for fear that the United States’ unique and controversial “wet foot, dry foot” policy might disappear.
That policy says that Cuban migrants who make it to shore — “dry foot” — won’t be sent back, and will essentially be granted US residency after a year and one day in this country. The original intent was to drain the best and brightest from communist Cuba by dangling US visas, so some Cubans worry that better US-Cuba relations will lead to a change in policy.
Only Congress can make changes to “wet foot, dry foot,” and that could take a while. But the rumors that the policy might disappear persist in Cuba, and a rising number of people are leaving the island for the US on boats or, in some cases, by land through Latin America.
[….]
Laguna does note that this family has an advantage: They have relatives living in Miami. For Cuban refugees who arrive alone, there’s a lot of uncertainty.
[….]
I ask them why they left Cuba. They all say similar thing: “the economy,” “jobs,” “no work.”
It’s an answer that fuels a growing argument: Why treat Cubans differently than Guatemalans who flee gangs and poverty? What about Mexicans wanting to send money back to their relatives back home, or people fleeing war and repression elsewhere who must petition for asylum in the United States? Why give Cubans a special pass?
Of course what they are working up to is not changing the fact that Cubans get a pass with special treatment, but they want every other person in the world who needs a job or is fleeing crime to get the same pass without that messy business of applying for asylum!
Seems six asylum seekers arrived in the Turks and Caicos (four from Cuba and two from Columbia). They then proceeded to protest their detention in a novel manner, and lo-and-behold the UN High Commissioner for Refugees clears the way for four of them to stay and work in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Cuban asylum seeker: One way to make sure your hunger strike is not interrupted!
When you read this it will make you laugh how many times everyone insists that the illegal aliens’ novel protest method had nothing to do with expediting their case.
Here is the gist of the story from TC Weekly (it isn’t often we get reports from this part of the world). And, it makes me wonder what is up with these Cubans when we (US) are allowing thousands and thousands of Cubans into the US as refugees annually, why aren’t these guys on their way to America? Were they rejects?
FOUR of six immigrants detained in the Turks and Caicos Islands were granted asylum this week.
But this is not as a result of their shocking protest action, according to the Government s Border Control Minister.
They claimed that they were being denied basic human rights at Providenciales Detention Centre where they were being held, and retaliated by going on a hunger strike.
One other Cuban man and a Columbian were also being detained at the centre waiting on a decision from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) a UN agency mandated to protect and support refugees.
Minister of Border Control and Labour, Ricardo Don-Hue Gardiner, spoke about the issue during a post-Cabinet press briefing at the Arch Plaza in Providenciales on Thursday.
He said that he received reports from the UNHCRon the asylum requests of three of the Cuban men on Friday and the two others on Tuesday.
“As a result of those reports the Ministry of Border Control has made a decision to grant asylum following the recommendation of the UNHCR to three of the Cubans.
The two who were rejected on the first round can appeal. The UN will again tell us what to do!
“Should they appeal, those appeals will then go in the usual course to the UNHCR who would then advise us of having further investigated the claims.
“They will then advise us of what they think we should do, but then it again becomes the responsibility of the TCI Government to make a decision on those claims.
LOL! And, just so you understand (again!) that their tactic to draw attention to themselves did not sway the decision!
“The TCI Government does not lend itself to be swayed by those kinds of activities; we look to the facts that we ve been given and we take the decision based on those facts.
“It is coincidental only that the reports from the UNHCR were received on the same day of last Friday before these actions, and so they are in no way as a result of these actions.
So, these guys in detention had needles and string handy for their little protest….hmmmm! Wonder where they got the idea?
