POLITICS-CUBA/US: Renewed Wrangling over Migration

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Dec 4 2001 (IPS) - The always-strained relations between Cuba and the United States were evident once again this week at a meeting to review the bilateral migration accords that have been in force since the mid-1990s.

Less than a month after a boat capsized, leaving 30 Cubans – nearly half of whom were children – dead in the Florida Straits as they made an illegal bid to reach U.S. soil, Havana has once again demanded the revocation of the Washington policy it blames for “encouraging” illegal emigration from the island.

The George W. Bush government, meanwhile, reiterated that the policy, embodied in the 1996 Cuban Adjustment Act, is not responsible for the deaths of numerous Cubans who have attempted to reach the United States in flimsy or overcrowded boats.

Cuban emigrants are attempting to “leave a situation in which they cannot fully exercise their human rights,” said James Carragher, U.S. State Department’s coordinator for Cuban Affairs. He also pointed to “the continued failure of the Cuban economy” as a factor that is pushing the island’s people to seek the “economic opportunities and economic well-being” that he said a free market can provide.

Meanwhile, Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban National Assembly and Havana’s chief delegate in the talks with Washington, acknowledged that a repeal of the U.S. law would not automatically put an end to illegal emigration, though he stressed that it would curb the incentives coming from the United States for Cubans to abandon their country.

The biannual negotiations on migration are the only regular and formal contact between the Fidel Castro government and its nemesis since the victory of the Castro-led revolution four decades ago – the U.S. government. Observers say the talks have fallen into a vicious cycle in which it will be difficult to make any progress.

“I cannot say we have advanced. We are in the same place we were six months ago,” said Alarcón.

The Cuban Adjustment Act provides automatic legal protections and the right to work for any Cuban who reaches U.S. territory, even if they have not been granted a visa to enter the United States legally.

If that law is not an incentive to leave the island illegally, then the United States should grant visas to all Cubans, without requiring a medical examination or a criminal background check, Alarcón commented.

Under the agreements now in force, the United States provides 20,000 visas to Cubans each year, a process handled by the offices of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Calculations by the U.S. media indicate that there are approximately two million Cubans living in that country, while population of the socialist-run island stands at over 11 million.

The crime of “illegal departure from national territory,” established in Article 216 of the Cuban Penal Code, carries a prison sentence of one to three years, or, if there is intimidation or violence involved, three to eight years.

Those who organise, promote or incite this crime can face sentences of two to five years behind bars, according to the law.

The United States’ Cuban Adjustment Act has been at the centre of 17 rounds of bilateral talks on migration, says Alarcón, precisely because it “violates the letter and spirit of the accords” that were signed in September 1994 and May 1995.

With the original, shared goal of regulating Cuban immigration to the United States, the accords commit Washington to granting the 20,000 visas annually and to repatriate all individuals intercepted in their attempts to enter U.S. territory illegally.

For its part, Havana promises not to take reprisals against the people repatriated to the island by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The first paragraph of the 1994 agreement obligates the United States to discontinue its practice “of granting parole to all Cuban migrants who reach U.S. territory in irregular ways.”

“There was an accord only because, in the first paragraph, the United States promised it would not admit everyone who arrived,” stated Alarcón, who read the text out loud in both Spanish and English during a Monday press conference.

But the Cuban lawmaker said that, overall, the agreements are a positive tool, and that their survival “benefits many people… A substantial portion of Cuban emigration was able to occur in a civilised way thanks to these accords.”

According to Carragher, more than 150,000 Cubans have safely and legally immigrated to the United States since 1994. But the U.S. official did not offer figures on the number of people who were intercepted or who were able to reach U.S. territory illegally in that period.

Carragher took part in the talks accompanied by 17 officials from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS), Coast Guard and Interests Section.

Among the concerns outlined by the U.S. delegation was the need to establish a new Cuban port for the repatriation of illegal emigrants intercepted at sea and stricter standards in the medical examinations required as part of the visa application.

Carragher acknowledged that the U.S. follow-up on the fate of people repatriated to the island has found that most have not been victims of reprisals from the Cuban authorities, but added, based on the terms of the migration agreements, “even one case is too many.”

As far as the possibility of greater cooperation between the two countries in efforts to stop migrant traffickers, Carragher assured that the U.S. Justice Department “is committed to upholding the law against these despicable people who would carry out human smuggling, and we will indict and seek to convict them.”

Alarcón, however, said the United States has not kept up in that area, pointing out that there have been very few cases of trials of migrant smugglers, and legal rulings have failed to discourage the crime.

Some 110 traffickers have been arrested in Cuba, while the number of arrests in the United States can be counted on one’s fingers, said an official in Havana.

The U.S. Coast Guard reports that 2,352 undocumented persons from Cuba reached U.S. territory from Oct 1, 2000 to Sep 30, 2001, and 777 were intercepted and returned to the island in that period.

An estimated 80 to 90 percent of the Cubans who reach the United States illegally are transported by smugglers who charge an average of 8,000 dollars per person.