Cubans cross into Laredo

The first wave of Cuban migrants has arrived in Laredo.

 

About 8,000 of the migrants recently stranded in Central America have crossed the Mexican border into the United States, the Associated Press reported Friday.

Some 180 migrants flew from Costa Rica to El Salvador, and have been making their way to the U.S., with the first reaching Laredo on Thursday night.

 

"I’m a Cuban who has just acquired the American Dream," said Daniel Caballero, one of the first to cross into Laredo, according to a Facebook posting of the sponsoring nonprofit group, Cubans in Liberty.

 

"It is the greatest happiness," said Liliande Gonzalez, 20, according to the same video.

 

The migrants have been traveling more than 3,200 miles by land across some of the world’s most dangerous countries in Central America to avoid the U.S. Coast Guard in the waters between Florida and Cuba.

 

The difference between Cubans and other migrants traveling north from Central American is they are allowed into the U.S. and almost instantly granted federal benefits and an expedited path to citizenship.

 

“Just like the Central American kids in 2014 before, it made the news this was happening very quietly and they are coming in large numbers,” said U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar.

 

“In my hometown of Laredo, I had heard about them, but I didn’t know that thousands were coming in. The administration just wouldn’t talk about this.”

 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reports more than 67,000 Cuban migrants crossed into the U.S. during fiscal years 2014 and 2015. Nearly two thirds, or more than 44,000, came through Laredo.

From one year to the next, the number of Cuban migrants crossing the U.S. border has nearly doubled with 43,000 in fiscal year 2015 alone, according to DHS statistics.

 

During a trip to Costa Rica earlier this month, Cuellar asked some Cuban migrants traveling to Florida why they were making their way through South Texas only to end some 200 miles from their starting point.

 

“I mean not knowing the U.S., how they are ending up in this place,” Cuellar remembers asking, “They said they heard it was a safe place and all that, but basically there is a pipeline already set up.

 

“Then I said, ‘You know, in my southern part of Texas, we get a lot of Central Americans, and there’s been issues about deportation, and they don’t get the same treatment that you do, and some people feel it’s not fair.’”

 

Since 1966, Cubans who step on U.S. soil have been admitted through special humanitarian provision in the Cuban Adjustment Act and the United States Refugee Act of 1980.

 

Also known as the “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy, these provisions ensure a safe, legal, and orderly immigration for Cubans who make it to U.S. soil and provide a pathway to permanent residence for Cubans who have been physically present in the U.S. for at least one year.

 

In 2014, President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro made history by deciding to normalize relations between the two countries.

 

This decision may cause revisions to immigration policy and have an affect on the future migration of Cubans to the U.S, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

 

Although immigration policy changes in the U.S. have come to a dead end time and time again in Congress, countries south of the border already began making changes to address the current crisis.

In Ecuador, migrants making their trek north are now being asked to present visas.

Nicaragua, a close ally of Cuba, has been refusing to let them pass, creating a pile up of Cuban migrants in neighboring Costa Rica.

 

Since Nov. 15, nearly 8,000 Cuban migrants have been stranded in Costa Rica, according to stats from the country’s Emergency Commission of Costa Rica or the C.N.E.

 

After months of waiting in makeshift respite centers set up by the Costa Rican government, the first of these migrants were finally allowed to continue their way north earlier this week.

Tuesday, officials in El Salvador received a group of 180 Cuban migrants flown in from Costa Rica as part of a pilot program started by Central American countries to address the recent Cuban migrant crisis.

 

“We take this action in coherence with the dignity and respect to human rights that the administration of the president of Salvador Sanchez Cerén requests for our migrant compatriots including those in countries of transit and those of destination,” said Hugo Martinez Bonilla, the foreign minister of El Salvador, in a Wednesday news release.

After their visas are verified, the migrants will be bused to the Guatemalan border, so they can continue on to Mexico, the release states.

 

Cuellar believes many of them will end up in his hometown of Laredo, where despite the thousands of migrants passing through, not much has been affected in recent years.

 

City of Laredo spokeswoman Xochitl Mora said she first became aware of the recent surge in November.

She said the city has not had to spend any resources to address the recent crisis.

“Things were not how they were in the Rio Grande Valley with the migrant children,” Mora said.

“Homeland Security and CBP have been in charge of it, and the migrants have not been staying here too long. Most of them leave the same day.”

 

In McAllen, officials said Thursday they have not seen an increase in Cuban migrants coming through consulate offices, ports of entry, or respite centers, but they are also aware of the situation.

 

Cuellar met with members of the media Thursday afternoon in Mission to highlight some of the issues affecting South Texas, including this crisis and some of the actions he has taken to address it.

 

“The bottom line is it’s going to be tough. Congress has not been very good with passing anything dealing with immigration … maybe next year, but this year anybody that wants to come in this year can come in.”

http://www.lmtonline.com/news/local/article_ef217626-bc3b-11e5-acce-33ca14cf4eca.html