POPULATION: Migration from Cuba Is Mainly Economic, Says Study

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Sep 18 1998 (IPS) - Most people hoping to leave Cuba are motivated by economic problems and by the fact that the island’s economic crisis has made it tougher for them to achieve what they would like to, according to a recent study here.

Researcher Antonio Aja said 60 percent of respondents in the survey cited economic factors and others related to the difficulty of achieving personal goals as their reasons for wanting to leave.

Aja said the economic factor was always there but that it was becoming increasingly predominant in Cuba, even though Cuban emigration stemmed from a multiplicity of causes.

The survey’s findings show that Cubans migrate for much the same reasons as thousands of Mexicans, Salvadorans and and other Latin Americans, even when other factors such as family reunification and political discontent are taken into account.

In Cuba’s case, emigration gets more attention because of the political and economic factors that make it more newsworthy, but Cuba is not the main source of migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, Aja added.

The study – done by the Center for the Study of Alternative Policies (CEAP) – estimated that between 490,000 and 733,000 people will have migrated from Cuba over a period of four to five years ending in 1999. Cuba has a total population of 11 million.

In its survey, CEAP – which is linked to the University of Havana – focussed on people who have decided or could decide to migrate or who, given their economic, political or social situation, were liable to do so.

According to the study, these are mostly people under the age of 40 years, many of them students or unemployed. Most are women.

“This potential pool of emigrants would probably be influenced in varying degrees by factors that are economic, social or have to do with the political climate and family reunification,” said Aja, an assistant director of the CEAP.

The main destination for those leaving the island, which is just 170 kms from the coast of the U.S. state of Florida, is the United States, home to 1.2 million Cubans – most of whom emigrated after 1959 – and their descendants.

“If others were lucky, then why not me?” asks Maria Caridad, a 40-year-old divorced mother of two who hopes to be one of the winners of the visa lottery, a special immigration programme that came into effect after Washington and Havana signed a series of agreements in 1994.

According to official U.S. sources, in the first round of the lottery, which took place in November 1994, there were 130,000 applications. The applications soared to 438,000 in the second round – in March 1996 – and 541,000 in the third, in June 1998.

Through this programme, the United States issued 5,398 visas in 1995, 7,490 in 1996 and 8,704 last year.

Cubans can migrate legally to the United States if they are sponsored by relatives already living there, who must be able to prove that they can take care of their relatives financially.

If applicants can prove they suffer political persecution, it is even easier for them to obtain visas since they do not need to show that they can support themselves financially or that they have relatives who can provide for them.

However, there has been a decline in the number of visas issued for political reasons: from 6,998 in 1995 to 3,831 in 1996 and, according to unofficial figures, fewer than 3,639 in 1997.

Fewer temporary visas are also being issued: since 1996, around 6,000 such visas have been issued yearly. The application-approval rate is about 30 percent, according to U.S. sources. However, Aja said that since 1996, U.S. immigration authorities had denied 9 out of 10 applications for temporary visas.

“Such action – though based on the right all countries have to allow or deny entry to any visitor – becomes an element that destabilizes the migratory flow between the two countries and makes some population groups even more determined to migrate,” said the CEAP expert.

The aim of agreements reached by the two countries in 1994 and 1995 is to normalize migration between the United States and Cuba. Relations between them have been strained ever since the island adopted socialism as its political and economic system.

But although both countries have said they are satisfied with the accords, people are still trying migrate illegally and some of them pay transporters up to 8,000 dollars a person to get to the United States.

Cuba officially confirmed on Sep. 10 that it had detained six U.S. citizens – five of them of Cuban origin – suspected of being involved in smuggleing Cubans across the Caribbean Sea to Florida. “They are being investigated and will be tried in court,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alejandro Gonzalez. He added that immigration authorities in Washington had arrested six other people for similar reasons.

Under the immigration accords, the United States commits itself to issuing at least 20,000 immigrant visas a year for Cubans and to repatriating any person intercepted while trying to leave Cuba illegally. Cuba, in turn, agreed to try and stop people from trying slip out of the island, but also to refrain from prosecuting those who succeed but are caught and repatriated by the U.S. authorities.

Under the agreements, the United States repatriated 899 people in May-July, 1997, and 290 in the corresponding period this year.

The new U.S. policy on Cuban immigrants ends the preferential treatment illegal immigrants from the island enjoyed, and also makes it harder for Cubans to enter the United States legally.

However, Cubans are still privileged compared to immigrants from other countries. They are guaranteed a minimum of 20,000 immigrant visas a year while other nations have maximum – not minimum – quotas.