Detente with US has Cubans worried about special immigration privileges
Detente with US has Cubans worried about special immigration privileges
Widespread jubilation over historic US-Cuba detente soured by fear that warming relations will end Cubans’ unique fast track to legal American residency
Associated Press in Havana
Thursday 25 December 2014 14.48 EST
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Cubans arriving at a US border or airport automatically receive permission to stay in the United States under policies
stemming from 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. Photograph: Ramon Espinosa/AP
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Like tens of thousands of Cubans, Gerardo Luis wants to get to the United States and he’s suddenly worried that time may be running out.
Across an island where migrating north is an obsession, the widespread jubilation over last week’s historic US-Cuba detente is soured by fear that warming relations will eventually end Cubans’ unique fast track to legal American residency.
For nearly a half-century, the Cuban Adjustment Act has given Cubans who arrive in the US a virtually guaranteed path to legal residency and eventual citizenship. The knowledge that they will be shielded from deportation has drawn hundreds of thousands of Cubans on perilous raft trips to Florida and land journeys through Central America and Mexico.
“If they take away the adjustment law, it would mean Cubans would end up just like all the other Hispanics who want to enter the United States,” said Luis, a 36-year-old construction worker who said he may try to reach Mexico and walk across the border if he doesn’t get a visa soon.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/25/cuba-us-immigration-privileges-detente
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