New York Times
By Frances Robles
January 9, 2016
In
Gretchen López’s slumber, during whatever winks of sleep she could get
in a crowded open air shelter, she dreamed she was sending money to her
mother in Cuba to renovate
her crumbling house and buy delicious food.
“But
I woke up and I was here,” she said, looking around a fire station here
in rural Costa Rica, where she sleeps beside hundreds of other Cubans
who got stuck while
trying to make a perilous journey through eight countries to reach the
United States.
Now,
after two months languishing in a shelter, Ms. López and nearly 11,000
other Cubans who were stranded because of a political impasse in Central
America will soon
be back on the trail, heading to the United States in an exodus that
some officials have likened to a stampede.
While
American politicians debate whether to accept Syrian refugees and
lament the crush of Central Americans who make their way illegally into
the United States, the
border is about to be crashed in the coming weeks by another wave of
newcomers.
But
in this case, the Cubans have a trump card: American law has long given
them special status to live in the United States and apply for a green card — provided they
make it there.
This
latest wave of Cuban migration stems from a number of changes enacted
by Cuba’s communist government in recent years, in part to jump-start
the island’s feeble economy.
People are allowed to sell their cars and real estate, a move that
suddenly enabled many more to pay smugglers to get them to the United
States. Cuba also began allowing its citizens to obtain passports and
leave the country more freely, unleashing a rush
for the exits.
If
that was the kindling, the Obama administration’s decision in 2014 to
restore diplomatic relations with Cuba served as the match. Rumors
quickly circulated that with
embassies reopening, the United States would soon eliminate the 1966
Cuban Adjustment Act, which gives Cubans who make it to the United
States a fast track to permanent legal residency.
UNITED STATES
TEXAS
Atlantic Ocean
Gulf of Mexico
Havana
MEXICO
CUBA
HONDURAS
Caribbean Sea
GUATEMALA
NICARAGUA
EL SALVADOR
La Cruz
VENEZUELA
COSTA RICA
PANAMA
COLOMBIA
Pacific Ocean
BRAZIL
ECUADOR
500 Miles
PERU
“There’s
a rush of Cubans now, because a lot of people are afraid of that law
being repealed,” said Lázaro Clarke, 34, who worked as a barber and
fruit vendor in Havana,
as he waited in Costa Rica. “With the law or without the law, I’m
going.”
Tens
of thousands of Cubans have plunked down the profits of their home and
car sales to pay for a treacherous 5,000-mile journey by plane, bus,
boat and foot. Most have
begun by flying to Ecuador, which did not used to require a travel
visa. Then they have moved on to Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica,
Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico in hopes of reaching the
American border.
The
circuitous route allows Cubans to bypass the dangerous trip through the
Florida Straits, a crossing that cost many Cubans their lives and
where, because of an American
policy known as “wet foot, dry foot,” they would be turned back if
caught by the Coast Guard.
About
30,000 Cubans made it to the southwest border of the United States in
the 2015 fiscal year, a 77 percent increase from the year before,
according to the Customs
and Border Protection agency.
Kathya Rodríguez, the director of Costa Rica’s immigration service, said, “In 2015, the numbers just shot up.”
Costa Rica said it warned its neighbors last year that a tidal wave was building.
“Many
countries turned to look the other way, as though they were ghosts —
they knew they were there, but paid no attention,” said Costa Rica’s
foreign minister, Manuel
González.
Then
in November, Costa Rica broke up a smuggling network that had been
ferrying migrants through the country. Without the guides to lead the
way, migrants who had been
quietly slipping past border crossings suddenly became conspicuous.
Thousands of them.
Costa
Rica gave them transit visas and sent them on their way, but Nicaragua —
a longstanding ally of Cuba — balked, refusing to let them pass. Cubans
started to pile
up at the Nicaraguan border. In November, throngs of them pushed their
way past the border agents.
They
were repelled by Nicaraguan soldiers with tear gas and swift beatings.
“As much as we lived under a regime, nothing like that had ever happened
to us before,” Ms.
López, 22, said. “Tear gas? Bullets? Some of us had been beaten by the
police before, but not like that.”
Thousands
of Cubans who said they were fleeing political and economic repression
at home learned about the unexpected perils of free societies, including
the proliferation
of guns. Armed bandits preyed upon Cubans on the road, especially those
who had not thought to first wire their life savings to relatives in
the United States.
“I
would tell anyone not to take this trip,” said Pedro Enrique Duarte, a
48-year-old accountant who was attacked in Colombia and rescued by a
local family. “You spend
the whole time straddling between life and death.”
Many people were financially wiped out.
“I
sold my house for $3,000, and I will arrive in debt,” said Dayana
Fernández, a 22-year-old hairdresser who hopes to join her in-laws in
South Florida.
With
Nicaragua still refusing to offer passage, Costa Rica has spent $1
million to house and feed the Cubans in schools and other shelters
around the country.
“Never
before have we, even in a natural disaster, had the necessity to attend
to this many people for this long,” Mr. González said.
Late
last month, Costa Rica and the other Central American countries agreed
on a plan to hasten the Cubans’ departure. On Tuesday, a group of 180
Cubans are scheduled
to fly over Nicaragua to El Salvador, which had not been part of the
migrant trail. From there, they will take a bus to Guatemala, then
another to southern Mexico.
If
the effort goes smoothly, two flights will leave each day, with the
expectation that it will take three weeks to evacuate the approximately
8,000 Cubans stuck in Costa
Rica. The hope is to hatch a similar plan for the 3,000 Cubans in
Panama, too.
The
Cubans will pay $555 for the charter flight, the bus and food arranged
by a travel agency. Once in Mexico, the Cubans will be on their own to
reach the United States
border. Unlike Hondurans and other Central Americans trying to reach
the border, Cubans can receive a 20-day transit visa from Mexico.
Nations
in the region stressed that the deal was a one-time offer. To stem the
flow of migrants, Ecuador started requiring visas in December. Costa
Rica says it will deport
any additional Cubans caught in its territory.
The
Cuban government has long condemned the American policy of accepting
Cuban migrants, saying it encourages human trafficking and “the
politicization of immigration
policies.”
“We
see it as a double standard,” said Hugo Martínez, El Salvador’s foreign
minister. “It’s a policy that allows one set of migrants to be treated
in a privileged manner
and another set of migrants in a discriminatory fashion.”
There
has been ample talk of modifying or revoking the 1966 Cuban Adjustment
Act, but the likelihood of action by Congress appears slim.
“Nobody
should be given preferential treatment,” said Representative Henry
Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who visited the Cubans at the shelters in
Costa Rica. “I don’t think
it’s fair at all.”
Even some staunch opponents of the Cuban government say the law needs to be rethought.
“This
notion that you’re going to have people coming up Central America and
into the United States through the southern border is unacceptable,”
said Senator Marco Rubio
of Florida, a Cuban-American running for the Republican presidential
nomination.
The
State Department said in a statement that the United States is
“committed to supporting safe, orderly and legal migration from Cuba,”
but added that “the administration
has no plans to alter current migration policy regarding Cuba.”
The
only bill to repeal the act came from Representative Paul Gosar,
Republican of Arizona, who said Cubans should be treated like other
“illegal immigrants.” He drew
little support from Cuban-Americans, and his bill has gained little
traction.
“Maybe
people think it’s not fair for us to get that privilege,” said Igor
Thondike, who has been sleeping on a basketball court in Costa Rica
since November. “It’s also
unfair that we Cubans have gone more than 50 years without an
election.”
He is eager to continue his journey and hopes to find a job installing windows in the United States.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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