Currently, every Cuban who manages to set foot on American soil is eligible for refugee status. Is this American law contingent on Cuba not letting most people leave? Or is it still applicable if Raul Castro threw open the gates tomorrow and a few million Cubans headed for Florida?
Cuba has an enormous number of unemployed welfare bums. If a Cuban Deng took over intending to capitalize the place, it would be very tempting to do a Mariel boatlift and dump the bottom million or two Cubans on America.My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
14 comments:
I have a feeling there is no answer to that question, and that "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it"; that is, IF it ever happens, we'll come up with a new refugee policy as soon as possible. My guess is it will never happen, because seeing half the population of his country emigrate en masse to the Evil Empire would be too much of an embarrassment for Raúl Castro to bear.
Raul Castro could easily die of old age tommorrow. How many "true believers" actually exist in the Cuban government?
Hah - what will happen over time is a Cuban policy that takes its cue from Mexico. It will liberalize to the degree that it attracts back its entrepreneurial class and U.S. investment, while unloading its poor on you know who. It's not like Castro was "embarrassed" by Mariel.
Sleep - Don't be so sure about how Raul Castro would feel. My ex wife is Central American, and I expressed more or less the same sentiment once, wondering if it wasn't somewhat humilatiing for a presumably patriotic president of her country to see his citizens bailing out en masse. She explained to me that the elites of her country are not patriots who want to see the best for their country, they are interested only in what will put money in their pockets and those of their cronies.
should be "threw", not "through"
Rememeber? Back in the 80's. A whole bunch of Cubans washed up on the Florida coast. We took them all in. As I recall, we had to. It turned out that Fidel had emptied his prisons and psycho wards and put the inmates on the boats.
I think the law was passed especially for Cuba, but I'm too lazy to look it up.
Just take Gloria Estefan back,ok?
Well, Fidel did come up with a rather innovative way to reduce jail and mental hospital overcrowding (one local police faced with illegal immigrants can emulate. Instead of calling ICE, buy them a one way bus ticket to an "amnesty city").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift
My favorite part of that wiki article...
"The Mariel Boatlift's effect on the economy and labor market of Miami was not as detrimental as expected or believed to have been. However, some of these positives could stem from Miami becoming the chief distribution city for powder cocaine.[3]"
I guess I'm preaching to the choir, if you scroll down to footnote [3]
"Sailer, Steve. George Borjas vs. David Card's Unworldly Philosophy. VDare. 7 July 2006."
Yeah, it'd change... hopefully.
The whole cuba thing is pretty weird. I'm not certain I get why we hate them so much that we're willing to make an automatic citizen of every one of their greedy little castaways. Anyhow Steve, it'd be great to get an answer to your question before the flood, but I doubt that'll happen.
mnuez
Haiti also has certain privileges - I just learned that Haitian families, like Cuban families, are eligible for free or low cost health insurance under the SCHIP programs, regardless of their means of entry, and that it doesn't count as being a public charge. Amerasians also have this privilege, as do Aboriginal Canadians belonging to certain tribes.
I watched a documentary last night called "Cocaine Cowboys" about the drug trade in Miami in the late 70's and early 80's. The movie makes the claim that after all the animals (mostly Cuban and Colombian) killed one another, the city actually benefited from the drug trade, due to the incredible amounts of cash floating around Dade county. The successful and cosmopolitan Miami of today was built with that drug money.
Brutus
My name is Antonio Montana. I am a political prisoner from Cuba. And I want my rights, just the the President, George Bush, says.
Steve,
You asked: "Currently, every Cuban who manages to set foot on American soil is eligible for refugee status. Is this American law contingent on Cuba not letting most people leave? Or is it still applicable if Raul Castro threw open the gates tomorrow and a few million Cubans headed for Florida?"
There are 2 different points here. First, to answer your question, the law you are talking about, the Cuban Adjustment Act, is not in anyway contingent on Cuba not letting people leave. Second, your description of the terms of the Cuban Adjustment Act is technically incorrect in one way and a little misleading in another way. I have linked to the actual language of the Cuban Adjustment Act below from a Wikipedia article to explain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Adjustment_Act
If you read the language, you will see 2 things. First (and this is a minor point), it is not true that every Cuban is eligible for refugee status, insomuch as those who are inadmissible to the United States (e.g. because of a criminal background or a communicable disease)can not be given legal status. If you have seen the movie Scarface, you see that Tony Montana spends the first part of the movie trying to get the U.S. government to give him legal status because he was initially ruled ineligible due to his criminal background. The second point, which is most relevant to the question you are asking, is that the language of the Cuban Adjustment Act does not say that everyone who is eligible for admission to the United States (i.e. they have no criminal background or communicable disease) has to be given legal status. What the Act says is that the Attorney General has the power (but not the obligation) to grant legal status (through an initial parole and the granting of a green card after one year of residence) to any individual who is not inadmissible. Currently, the Bush Administration simply uses its authority to grant legal status to any individual Cuban who is not inadmissible to give legal status to all Cubans who are not inadmissible. However, in case the Cuban government decided to let millions of Cubans leave, the Bush Administration could simply decide that they not going to use their powers under the Cuban Adjustment Act for some or all Cubans. The Cubans not given special status would then have to apply for asylum on an individual basis just as people from any other country do. As to the what the Bush Administration would do in case Raul Castro decides to send a huge number of people here, I don't know. But even the Bush Administration recognizes the need for some immigration restrictions with Cuba, which is why the current Bush policy is to send back anyone caught at sea while allowing anyone who reaches land to stay permanently (the wet foot, dry foot policy). In fact, if the Bush Administration really wanted an uncontrolled influx from Cuba, they could simply repeal the "wet foot, dry foot policy" (which is not a law but rather an executive branch policy) and simply allow Cubans caught at sea to come to the U.S. There would then surely be a massive number of Cubans getting on rafts and eventually becoming permanent residents. So my best guess is that in the case of a huge number of Cuban coming, the Bush Administration (and probably any other Administration) would require Cubans to apply for asylum individually to order to slow the influx.
At least Cubans have Eastern European birthrates, as opposed, to, say, Haitian.
Post a Comment