McClatchy: U.S. won't provide this year's quota of visas to Cubans

[babylonsister]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/18079.html

U.S. won't provide this year's quota of visas to Cubans
By Pablo Bachelet and Frances Robles | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — The United States won't meet its commitment to provide at least 20,000 visas for Cubans to migrate from the island this year because the Havana government has placed "unreasonable constraints" on its diplomatic mission there, the State Department said Tuesday.

The surprise admission that Washington would fail for the first time to meet a key obligation under a 1994 migration accord with Havana came after the Cuban Foreign Ministry accused the Bush administration of withholding immigration visas in an attempt to destabilize the island.

The accusation touches a raw nerve, as both sides often have traded allegations that the other uses migration for political ends. The matter has taken renewed importance now, a year after a sick Fidel Castro handed power to his brother Raul, setting the stage for the first leadership transition in nearly half a century.

The Bush administration has made it no secret that it wants Cuba to initiate a transition to a democratic form of government. But the diplomatic squabbling hits ordinary Cubans the hardest.

"People who had their exit interviews at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana a month after me are still waiting in Cuba, and I've been here almost a year," said Lizette Fernandez, a former Cuban dissident who now lives in Hialeah, Fla. "When you call Cuba and ask, 'How's so and so?' people say, 'Ay, chica, he's still waiting for his visa.'

"Not everybody throws themselves to the sea. People want to go legally."

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[aquart]

1. End this Cuba shit. Normalize relations.

Screw the Batista-loving Miami Cubans.

[ret5hd]

2. The funny part is that as soon as relations are normalized,

the supply of visas is gonna be even thinner. As soon as they aren't needed for PR purposes, they're just gonna be "another brown person".