Obama Administration Ending Policy Allowing Cubans to Stay Without Visas

 

‘Wet-Foot, Dry-Foot’ policy, U.S. practice since 1990s, will end.

WASHINGTON— Carol E. Lee and Felicia Schwartz report: The White House plans to announce that President Barack Obama is undoing a longstanding policy that allows Cuban émigrés who reach U.S. soil without visas to stay in the country and apply for a green card after one year, administration officials said.

The special exception for Cuban immigrants — known as the “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy — has been in place since the 1990s. It allows Cubans who make it to U.S. soil to stay, while those caught in transit are sent back.

Those who are permitted to remain also may be eligible to receive benefits the U.S. grants to refugees fleeing persecution, including cash assistance and health care coverage.

The policy, essentially encouraging Cubans to flee their country, has long been part of the economic, immigration, and foreign policy tool kit used by Washington, and has been opposed by Havana, which considers it a drain on its resources. No other immigrants are provided similar allowances.

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Mr. Obama’s decision to reverse the policy one week before he leaves office marks one of his final moves to solidify his effort begun in 2014 to restore U.S. relations with Cuba. Putting Cubans on equal footing with immigrants from other countries would be a sign of more normalized relations. But it is also a step the Cuban government has wanted the White House to take.

The wet-foot, dry-foot policy grew out of the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which gives the U.S. Attorney General discretion to treat Cuban immigrants differently than those from other countries. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the number of Cubans trying to leave the country skyrocketed, resulting in often dangerous flotilla escapes. In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton spearheaded a policy change that provided that anyone caught at sea would be sent back to Cuba.

The wet-foot, dry-foot policy can be effectively ended by no longer affording Cuban immigrants different treatment, said Robert Muse, a Washington-based lawyer who has long worked on Cuba policy and business deals.

Anticipating the possible repeal of the policy, many Cubans have been flocking to the U.S. since Mr. Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro announced plans to restore relations between their two countries in December 2014. In fiscal year 2016, more than 46,000 Cubans entered the U.S., up from 43,000 in 2015 and 24,278 in 2014…(read more)

Source: WSJ