U.S. insists it's ready if another Cuban mass migration occurs

[seemslikeadream]

By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press Writer

...

"If there is a mass migration threat to Florida, there's lots of plans in place," said Amos Rojas Jr., special agent in charge of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Miami office. "My sense is it's better to be prepared than to have the chaos we had in 1980."

The plan, dubbed "Operation Vigilant Sentry," was developed by the Homeland Security Department along with Florida officials and the military. It reflects the greater sense of urgency surrounding border security in the wake of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Its central goal is to intercept migrants at sea - preferably close to their home shores - and immediately return them in hopes of deterring more people from attempting a dangerous ocean crossing.

The concept had a dry run of sorts in February 2004, when the government of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide collapsed. Nearly 1,000 Haitians were intercepted by the Coast Guard during the chaos and immediately repatriated. But a much-feared mass migration never happened.


more
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050409/APN/504090664

[tanyev]

1. Are they ready for a mass migration

from Florida TO Cuba?

[bobthedrummer]

2. It's a taunt, like "BRING IT ON".

This is our Reich now. Deal with it. That's where we are at today.

[peacetalksforall]

3. They are going to hang around the shores of Cuba to intercede

close to their shores? What's up with that? Sounds like a cover.

[Judi Lynn]

4. If they are honest about holding back a flood of Cuban immigrants

they need to get busy and withdraw that perverse Cuban Adjustment Act. This is a short speech given in Congress in 1994 on the subject:

INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION TO REPEAL THE CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT (House of Representatives - February 10, 1994)


(Mr. KOPETSKI asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. KOPETSKI. Mr. Speaker, as you know, many people come to our country every year seeking asylum. We accept asylum-seekers for basically three reasons: family reunification, desirable economic benefits, and humanitarian concerns. We turn many people away if they do not fit into one of these categories.

Mr. Speaker, I visited refugee camps in Hong Kong, Thailand, India, and Turkey, and I heard the horror stories that people endured and learned how difficult it is to gain political asylum in the United States.

However, an exception to our immigration policy allows one group of people to come to this country no questions asked. If they stay here a year, they gain permanent-residency status. This exception is made not on the basis of political oppression, poverty, warfare, or to reunite families. Under this exception in 1991-92 more people were given permanent status in the United States than were accepted from Cambodia, El Salvador, Romania, Somalia, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia combined.

The reason over 10,000 people were given permanent status in the United States was that they were born in Cuba. The Cuban Adjustment Act is indefensible and should be repealed, and that is why today I am introducing legislation to repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act so Cubans will be treated just as every other political asylum seeker in the world is treated.

• Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation to repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966.
  
  
• Mr. Speaker, the Cuban Adjustment Act allows Cuban nationals who have been living in the United States for 1 year, under any circumstances, to become permanent residents of the United States. In practical terms, the act creates an exception to our immigration law which is not available to any other people of any other nationality. In 1991-92 a total of 10,851 Cuban nationals adjusted to permanent resident status, this is in addition to 7,911 Cuban refugees for the same period. The number of Cuban nationals who adjusted under the act exceeds the total number of refugees in 1991-92 from Cambodia, El Salvador, Romania, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia. Further, with travel restrictions being lowered in Cuba there is a greater likelihood that Cuban nationals may be overstaying their nonimmigrant visas and adjusting to permanent residence status under the act. The act enables presumably any Cuban national who arrives in the United States and finds some way to stay here, to become a permanent resident, whether or not he or she meets the definition of a refugee or fits within the legal immigration preference categories.
  
  
• The act was passed in 1966, a time when we as a country had very different concerns and priorities. It has not accomplished the goal of sending a message to Cuba, even if the message was sent it was never heard. Fidel Castro is still in power in Cuba while many of those who oppose him now reside permanently in this country. Some have even argued that the act has prolonged the Castro regime. The act is a cold war relic and it should go the way of other vestiges of the cold war.
  
  
• A greater issue raised by the act is its patently discriminatory effect. I cannot believe that we are willing to continue to support a law which gives this overly generous benefit to people leaving a country which is certainly no worse off than many Caribbean and Latin American countries. Further, Mr. Speaker because this law allows any person who is simply Cuban-born to gain permanent residence status in the United States. Cuban-born people who are currently living in Germany, Spain or Canada can leave those countries and attain permanent residence status in this country if they so desire. How can we continue to justify this law when there are so many people fleeing desperate situations that we must refuse?
  
  
• Mr. Speaker, the repeal of this obsolete law has enjoyed a large base of support. It has passed the Senate a number of times and has been favorably reported out by the House Juidicary Committee. The Cuban Adjustment Act creates the perception of unfairness. But more importantly, Mr. Speaker the act is in fact unfair to people throughout the world seeking political asylum in the United States. I urge swift consideration of this important legislation.
  (snip/)

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r103:H10FE4-698:

[Judi Lynn]

5. This is another trick Bush uses in his ongoing threats against Cuba

He repeats them cyclically, as part of a package of bogus claims against Cuba, including "having dual-use biological weapons," "trafficking in slavery" (or SOMETHING similar!), harboring terrorists, promoting terrorism, etc., etc.

As an indication he did this last year, please see the formal remarks meant to address his threats of giant devilish migration plots from last year:

In particular, the Ministry underlines the fact that the United States has decided to cancel its migratory talks with Cuba precisely at a point when it is making enormous political and financial efforts to control its borders and eliminate illegal emigration to that country.

In both Washington and Havana, U.S. officials were capable of cynically adding that the U.S. government will continue complying with the Migratory Agreements.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers it necessary to inform our people and world public opinion of this new maneuver by the U.S. government, aimed at negatively affecting the functioning of the Migratory Agreements signed between Cuba and the United States and the attaining of a normal migratory relation between the two countries.

Without any doubt, this action constitutes a tribute being paid by the Bush administration under pressure from the Miami terrorist mafia who, not content with what the present U.S. government has done against Cuba to date, are taking advantage of the U.S. electoral context to revert by all means – including the crudest political blackmail – its strategic defeat and political and moral discredit.

This decision compounds the extensive list of aggressions, plots and statements executed by the U.S. government in recent months.

Through the relevant diplomatic channels the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has expressed its condemnation of this irresponsible action that does not benefit the real national interests of the United States, but merely attempts to assuage the craving for revenge and hatred on the part of a tiny groups of ultra-reactionary individuals interested in stimulating a U.S. policy of aggression and hostility toward Cuba and putting paid to the Migratory Agreements.

The pretexts given for not wishing to go ahead with the migratory talks could not be more unreal or absurd, and demonstrate that the real meaning of this action has more to do with Miami politicking than with genuine national interests of security and immigration.

In addition to posing the core problems affecting the strict fulfillment of these agreements in every round of talks, Cuba has never refused to discuss and analyze any of the subjects referred to by the U.S. authorities. All of them, without exception, have been part of the traditional agenda of the U.S. delegations to the rounds of migratory talks and there has always been a wide-ranging and profound debate on each of the subjects mentioned. Cuba has expressed its arguments in a serious and responsible way, in the spirit of explaining down to the most minor detail each of the aspects brought up by the U.S. officials.

Cuba ratifies that it has been and is prepared to seriously discuss, in the depth and time required, all the subjects mentioned by the U.S. authorities.

The United States is trying to manipulate the reality and cover up what Cuba has exposed on innumerable occasions: that the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act and the irrational “wetfoot-dryfoot” policy are the real obstacles to the normalization of the migratory flow between the two countries, the real incitements to illegal emigration and the largest violation of the Migratory Agreements.

With this decision the U.S. government is trying to divert attention from important aspects within the migratory relations between the two countries and matters that constitute violations of the Migratory Agreements. These aspects include the dramatic reduction of visas for Cuban citizens wishing to visit relatives in the United States; the non-return to Cuba of some of the illegal emigrants intercepted at sea; the incitement to illegal emigration and the commission of acts of violence in order to emigrate broadcast from radio stations located in the United States; and the absence of decisive action against the traffickers of illegal emigrants, among others.

The U.S. delegation to the rounds of migratory talks has always been loath to accept its responsibility in these aspects of non-compliance which certainly are key and of vital importance for the migratory relations between the two countries, and not because Cuba has conditioned or refused participation in these rounds.

The fallacy and absurdity of this decision are all the more notorious on recalling that the U.S. authorities have rejected – without giving the most minimal explanation or even showing the slightest interest in discussing it – the proposal for a new bilateral agreement on migratory affairs that was put forward by Cuba in September 2000 and reiterated on five occasions. Cuban proposals to establish agreements in relation to combating drug trafficking and terrorism have met with similar scorn.

We demand of the U.S. government that it set aside the absurd and empty pretexts that only seek to satisfy narrow anti-Cuban interests and acts in line with the real interests of the U.S. people.

The U.S. government bears the sole responsibility for the cancellation of this round of migratory talks.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirms the unequivocal will of the government of Cuba to continue honoring, as it has done to date, the spirit and the letter of the Migratory Agreements signed by Cuba and the United States and urges the government of the United States to assume a similar attitude.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Havana, January 5, 2004

Wed January 14, 2004 | Posted By: publisher
(snip/)

http://havanajournal.com/politics_comments/A1201_0_5_0_M/

[geomon666]

6. Do they know something we don't?

Who the hell are they kidding? They can't even stop the smugglers now. Families pay these guys to bring their relatives over and to avoid legal problems, they dump em off shore and let em ride in a dingy raft the rest of the way, so they can say they 'risked their lives'. Now of course that's not everybody, but it's a good percentage of it.

[Mika]

7. Remember, it was the Miamicubans who picked up the Marieletos

It wasn't Cuba that parachuted Cubans from Mariel to Miami or dropped them off on Miami's coast.

It was the Miami Cuban exile community (as well as smugglers for profit) who went to Cuba to pick them up and brought them to Miami in what was the largest single immigrant smuggling op in US history - over 150,000.

[msongs]

8. sure , like the mass migration of people from mexico?

the feds cannot handle much of anything since bush has been gutting them.

Msongs
www.msongs.com

[Berserker]

9. Why come into

Florida just come in through Mexico. Most people have no problem with illegals coming from Mexico.

[Mika]

10. There is no such thing as a Cuban illegal immigrant!

The USA offers over 20,000 LEGAL immigration visas per year to Cubans (and Bush just announced that the number would increase despite the fact that not all 20,000 were applied for in the last few years). This number is more than any other single country in the world. Its the US interests section in Cuba that does the criminal background check on the applicants.

The US's 'wet foot/ dry foot' policy (that applies to Cubans only) permits Cuban criminals and felons who arrive on US shores by illegal means to remain in the US despite having failed to qualify for a legal US immigration application.

Cubans who leave for the US without a US visa are returned to Cuba (if caught at sea - mainly in smuggler's go-fast boats @ $5,000 per head) by a US/Cuban repatriation agreement. But IF they make it to US soil, no matter who they are or what their criminal backround might be, they get to stay in the US and enjoy perks offered ONLY TO CUBAN IMMIGRANTS (via the US's Cuban Adjustment Act and a variety of other 'Cubans only' perks). Perks like instant work visa, instant green card, instant access to sec 8 taxpayer assisted housing, instant social security, instant welfare, free health care, and more.

These perks are not offered to any other immigrant group, but yet, without the perks offered to Cubans, immigrants still pour into the US from all over the Caribbean and the Latin Americas - many taking greater risks than Cubans to get here.


Get it? There is no such thing as a Cuban illegal immigrant. Plus, they get perks that no other group is offered.