In a surprise move (at least a surprise to me), President Obama announced that our country would be moving towards normalization of our relationship with Cuba. As part of the deal, the two countries agreed to exchange some political prisoners, and it appears we will be restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba and opening an Embassy in Havana.
During our long Cold War with Cuba, one element of our “special relationship” has been the Cuban Adjustment Act (“CAA”), a law that allows any Cuban who arrives in the United States to obtain residency here. It’s akin to automatic asylum for any Cuban who reaches U.S. shores.
I have written before about my opposition to this law: In short, I believe that Cubans should apply for asylum in the same way as everyone else. It makes no sense to give automatic asylum to Cubans, especially since other countries—Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq to name a few—are much more dangerous than Cuba, and nationals from those countries must apply for asylum in the normal way.
It seems to me that the CAA and our over-all Cuba policy exists because of our government’s decision that this was the best way to isolate the Castro regime and force democratic change on our island neighbor. More specifically, anti-Castro Cubans in Miami pushed our nation’s Cuba policy towards the all-stick, no-carrot approach that—50 years later—has accomplished nothing. Now, it seems attitudes among the Cuban American community have shifted. To be sure, many still oppose normalization, but—so far at least—we have not seen the type of angry, in-the-streets reaction that characterized the Elian Gonzales affair during the Clinton Presidency. Perhaps there is more widespread recognition that the old policy hasn’t worked, and that we need to try something new.
So now that we are moving towards a new phase in our relationship with Cuba, it makes sense to end the CAA. The situation in Cuba is less dangerous than in many other countries, and so there is no longer any justification for the CAA based on humanitarian reasons (though I believe there really never was a valid justification for the law based on humanitarian reasons). The only logical reason for the CAA was as a propaganda tool against the Castro regime. I doubt this ever really worked (except maybe in the minds of some in the anti-Castro Cuban community), and—given that we are moving towards normalized relations—it certainly makes no sense at all any more.
All of this is not to say that the Cuban regime respects human rights or allows political dissent. It’s clear that the government represses the political opposition, and that it detains and persecutes perceived opponents. But that type of behavior is, unfortunately, all too common in many countries, and it does not justify a blanket asylum for everyone who comes from a country with a poor human rights record. Indeed, it is exactly why we have an asylum system in the first place.
The CAA is inconsistent with our new Cuban policy. When viewed in context of the overall asylum system, it cannot be justified on humanitarian grounds. It’s time to end the CAA and move towards a new relationship with Cuba.
I have seen many Cubans on food stamps driving new Bmw, Mercedes Benz , etc. Cuban immigrants now are the worse, Miami is the capital of Medicaid fraud, insurance fraud, identity theft.
You are right, as usual. Ending this and the wet foot/dry foot policy will accelerate the opening of Cuba and the democratization of the island.
Matthew – When you agree with me, I know I am on the right track! Happy new year, Jason
[…] Jason Dzubow, author of the Asylumist, a thoughtful blog on asylum and refugee issues, thinks it’s time to end the policy. He writes: […]
Sorry, I can’t agree with you here – even though I think Obama’s right to normalize relations with Cuba. At a time when our asylum system is overloaded and it will take years to clear up the backlog, adding a still greater burden to it is wrong, and the argument that it will be “fairer” if Cubans suffer along with everybody else is not enough to justify a move that will make wait times longer for everybody else too.
If we want to make things “fairer,” why not use the political effort and capital it would take to repeal the CAA to expand it instead, offering similar rights to North Koreans, Somalis, Sudanese, and Syrians, rather than yanking it away from Cubans? That would be just as fair – and it would lighten, not increase, the load on the asylum system. Obviously, this will never happen with the current Congress, but let’s bide our time, and in the meantime, let’s not do asylum seekers the “favor” of making them wait in line with the Cubans.
I don’t like the idea of designating certain countries as dangerous and automatically granting asylum to their nationals. As you mention, Congress would never create such a law, though probably it could be done administratively (like TPS). The problem is that this leaves many countries out, and if we deem Cuba to be dangerous, that is setting a pretty low bar. Almost any dictatorship on earth is as dangerous as Cuba. So then we’d have a situation where almost anyone from a non-democratic country could automatically receive asylum. This would create incentives for such people to come to the U.S., but it would also create an incentive for U.S. embassies to stop issuing visas. Also, for me, I believe in a humanitarian asylum policy that is a-political (though of course that was not the original intent back in the day – international asylum law is arguably all about fighting Communism). The CAA exists because of political considerations. For this reason, I think it perverts our humanitarian asylum law and it is another reason I oppose it.
Agree 100%