Thursday, June 27, 2013
"Temporary" refugees and immigration policy
A reader asked if there
are any Cuba provisions in the immigration bill that passed the Senate today
(see link in this article from Politico).
There are none, which is
is a little surprising because last January Senator Rubio said it was going to
be “impossible” to debate a comprehensive immigration bill “and not talk about
whether or not there should be changes in the Cuban Adjustment Act.”
But on Tuesday the
Senator noted that Cuba had not come up at all in the immigration debate. Asked by the St. Petersburg Times how he would propose
to change the treatment of Cuban nationals in U.S. immigration law, he said it
is “something I need to study more carefully.”
When
Senator Rubio and others were making their statements early in the year, I
supposed that they wanted to do what former Rep. David Rivera had proposed,
which was to punish Cubans who would travel back to Cuba before acquiring
citizenship, i.e. in their first five or six years after arriving (see here
and here). We’ll see if Rep. Diaz-Balart puts a Cuba
provision into the House bill.
Senator
Rubio on Tuesday repeated his old canard about his own constituents, saying
that it is “very difficult to justify someone’s status as an exile and refugee
when a year and a half after they get here they are flying back to that country
over and over again.”
There’s
no such thing as “exile” status in U.S. immigration law. As for refugees and asylees, the only categories
of immigration where admission to the United States depends on stating a well
founded fear of persecution, they account for only about ten percent of Cuban
immigrants.
But
those facts don’t stop Senator Rubio from inferring that his constituents are
hypocrites. He repeatedly accuses them
of violating a claim they never made.
When
it comes to actual refugees, he does have a point. But what would he do with a new type of
refugee, the family of the late dissident leader Oswaldo Paya, who recently
came to the United States?
At
first blush it appeared that they had pulled up stakes and abandoned Cuba for
good.
But
Rosa Maria Paya, Oswaldo’s daughter, said that isn’t so.
“We arrived as
political refugees, but we are here on a temporary basis,” she said in Miami. She says there is “no restriction of any
kind” on their returning to Cuba. “We
could do it. We have our Cuban passports
valid for two years.”
First, welcome to
America.
Now let’s figure out
what this means for Senator Rubio and the problem he is wrestling with.
The liberalization of
Cuba’s policy regarding its own citizens’ travel abroad has resulted in many dissidents traveling
abroad
to speak their mind, gather support, learn, and just see the world.
The Paya family takes
things to a new level by having residences in both places and intending to move
back and forth as they see fit. (And,
incidentally, being eligible for a whole set of U.S. government benefits
especially during their first year: health care, food assistance, education and
job training assistance, and more.)
“Thus the opposition
has just brought about the possibility of entering and leaving Cuba by season,
keeping homes in both countries and letting the time pass and the Castro
brothers die, and then seeing if the future in Cuba is brighter or darker. To say it in Cuban: to dodge the storm, any
storm. Meantime, with residency assured
thanks to the Cuban Adjustment Act, the young ones start a new life and build a
future in a country that has suddenly converted itself into a sort of foster
home for children and a social services agency for those of advanced age. All this without a need to make any
commitment to the nation that serves as the country of adoption for purposes of
benefits, but not for purposes of making a citizenship commitment.”
Harsh, but true.
Back to Senator
Rubio.
The Payas say they are
going to continue their political activism, and surely Senator Rubio wouldn’t
want to deny them the opportunity to return to Cuba to do that. So he could propose that we return to the Bush
era of restricting Cuban-American travel, but this time with a new exemption
for the Payas and others who engage in the right kind of political activity in
Cuba. There could be new monitoring
mechanisms and licensing requirements to prevent abuse. Maybe we could hire officials from Cuba who used
to evaulate applications for exit permits, examine letters of invitation,
investigate and interview potential travelers, etc. They have experience administering travel
controls, and lots of time on their hands.
Or, more seriously, he
could come to terms with the changes in his own neighborhood.
The Cuban American
community is not an exile community anymore; those who consider themselves
exiles are now only one part of the community.
With the freedom afforded by new policies of both governments, it turns
out that many Cubans like to go back and forth.
And a growing number – the Payas being the latest example – like having
a home on both sides. Exile is a state
of mind, and it is none of U.S. government’s business to impose it on Cuban
immigrants through our immigration policy.
On the other hand, Senator
Rubio’s speeches on freedom and limited government are really terrific.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
No Snowden in Havana
Until yesterday it
appeared that Edward Snowden, the rat on the run for divulging U.S. government
secrets, might depart Russia for a life of political asylum in Ecuador, making
a brief stop on our favorite island. But
the Moscow-Havana Aeroflot flight took off without him, and his plans and
whereabouts are as unclear as ever.
Today, Russian officials are
denying that he is even there.
(Update: President Putin confirms that he’s in Russia and won’t be extradicted.)
(Update: President Putin confirms that he’s in Russia and won’t be extradicted.)
Cuba has not been
mentioned as an asylum option. Is that
because Cuba has been asked and said no?
Anya Landau French dug up the State Department’s
terrorism report for
2005
where the section that justifies Cuba’s designation as a “state sponsor of
terrorism” includes this statement: “Cuba has stated that it will no
longer provide safe haven to new U.S. fugitives who may enter Cuba.” That’s a pretty clear statement of Cuban policy,
not something that Bush Administration officials would have included casually. If it applies now, and if it bars layovers as
well as long-term stays, then Snowden needs a Plan B, big time.
There
has been no Cuban government statement on the matter. This article in yesterday’s
Granma simply rounds up the news about Snowden without mentioning speculation
that he might transit Cuba on his way to Quito.
The reason Snowden is
having to hop-scotch around the world is that the United States has agreements
with many countries that would require them to turn Snowden over. And in the absence of agreements, we have
relationships with many countries that are sufficiently strong that they would
be open to a request from Washington.
Add up the two categories of countries, and Snowden’s options narrow.
The United States and
Cuba do have an extradition agreement in force, dating from 1904. But it is a dead letter because neither side
has honored its terms for years. From
the first weeks of Cuba’s revolution, the United States refused to hand over
persons sought by Cuba, and Cuba has fugitives from U.S. justice that it has
refused to hand over.
Since extradition
agreements are based on reciprocal obligations, and since the United States
thinks little of Cuba’s justice system, it is unlikely that the United States
would seek to revive an extradition agreement with Cuba. Even in cases where we have agreements, some
do not apply to all crimes. As we saw in
the Ana Montes case, Montes’ alleged accomplice Marta Rita Velazquez is safely out
of reach of U.S. law in Sweden because our extradition
agreement with that country excludes political crimes, a category that
includes espionage.
But what if we did
negotiate with Cuba? Each side would
carve out exceptions from the obligation to extradict, and the agreement might
exclude past cases such as Luis Posada Carriles and JoAnn Chesimard. Even if it’s an agreement full of holes, it
would be worth it if it complicates the life and travels of the next Edward
Snowden.
Friday, June 7, 2013
A course for entrepreneurs
On her Twitter
feed, Yoani Sanchez posts a photo of a sign announcing a training course for
entrepreneurs in a Santiago church.
Tampa speaks up
Miami-Dade is the U.S. capital of engagement with Cuba,
with dozens of flights per week filled mainly with Cuban Americans. Many of those flights require a second
cargo-only plane to carry passengers’ excess baggage, a large and uncounted
stream of U.S. exports to Cuba. Cuban
Americans have responded enthusiastically to openings in Cuba, helping relatives
there open businesses and acquire real estate, so much so that a friend of mine
calls Miami-Dade one of Cuba’s largest trading partners.
But Miami’s political leadership still represents, with
the partial exception of Rep. Joe Garcia, the views of those Cuban Americans who
oppose all engagement with Cuba.
Tampa’s engagement with Cuba is far less than Miami’s,
although its connections with Cuba are far deeper, going back more than a
century to the days when Jose Marti went there to seek the local Cuban
community’s support for Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain.
In contrast to Miami, Tampa’s political and business
leadership stands up for engagement with Cuba and wants more of it. Three city council members just joined the
Tampa Chamber of Commerce in a trip
to Cuba. How strong is the political
push? Look at Rep. Kathy Castor’s April
letter to President Obama calling for a comprehensive reform of Cuba
policy.
What is the trend?
It would be wrong to underestimate the strength of the pro-embargo
forces – note Congressional voting patterns, the Florida legislature’s passage of
legislation to punish firms that do business with Cuba, and the fact that
Senator Nelson remains in Miami’s camp, not Tampa’s.
But the changes taking place are important. No other state has stood so strong for the
Cuba embargo, and the strength of its argument in presidential politics was
sapped by the 50-50 split in the Cuban-American vote in the 2012 election. Tampa’s argument for change based on economic
and foreign policy interests can only augur well for the future.
Odds and ends
- Herald: One of Rep. Joe Garcia’s staffers is gone and another is on leave after the feds searched their homes in an election fraud probe. During last year’s Democratic primary election they allegedly went on-line, using computers with masked IP addresses, to request absentee ballots in the names of hundreds of voters. It is not clear from any of the articles how they planned to obtain the absentee ballots, once issued. In the event, authorities smelled something fishy and did not act on the requests. Garcia says he did not know of the scheme. He is cooperating in the investigation and conducting his own investigation, and while he is angry about the scheme, he said: “I think it was a well-intentioned attempt to maximize voter turnout.” Strange. The primary was already marred by apparent fraud in the case of David Rivera’s straw-man candidate Justin Lamar Sternad. Now it appears to be bipartisan.
- Herald: The Florida law designed to punish the Brazilian firm Odebrecht for the business it does in Cuba was struck down by a federal appeals court. Earlier note on the Florida law here.
·
Progreso Weekly
interviews Jorge Pinon of the University of Texas on Cuba’s energy future. Note his comments on ethanol, the untapped
resource that could revive sugar production, creating jobs and producing by his
estimate 70,000 barrels of the fuel per day.
See also Reuters
on the Russian company Zarubezhneft that is abandoning a deep-water exploration
project and says it will be back next year.
- El Pais on the difficult story of the 115 Cuban dissidents who were released from jail and went to Spain (along with 650 relatives) in 2011: “big intentions, insufficient planning, too many surprises, and very few resources.”
·
Diario de Cuba:
Cuba’s national baseball team will come to the United States to play a few
games next month. As for Cubans in the
majors, the Dodgers called up outfielder Yasiel Puig and he’s not doing badly, hitting
a grand
slam last night; see also here
and here.
- JTA: Jailed USAID contractor Alan Gross settled his lawsuit with DAI, his employer, and his separate suit against the U.S. government was dismissed. There’s more at Along the Malecon. CNN reports that Cuba will permit a U.S. doctor to examine Gross; last September his family requested such an examination.
·
Havana
Times has an English translation of an interview that the BBC’s Fernando
Ravsberg did with Rene Gonzalez, one of the “Cuban Five” intelligence agents
who completed his sentence in the United States and has returned to Cuba.
- El Pais interviews economics professor Carmelo Mesa-Lago on the economic reforms in Cuba.