Obama Ends “Wet Foot/Dry Foot” Policy for Cuban Refugees

 

America will, per a new last-minute decree from Obama, no longer automatically grant asylum to Cubans who make it to US shores. Instead, Cuban refugees (and they really are refugees from that island hellhole) will automatically be sent back to Cuba, overturning a policy that has been in effect since Castro seized control of the island nation. The current policy (known as Wet Foot / Dry Foot) was a product of the Clinton administration, and stipulated that Cubans had to actually touch US soil, where before they were given asylum merely for being picked up at sea.

I cannot help but think that this is part of Obama’s attempts to poke as many people as he can on his way out the door, for Obama must know that such people, when returned to Cuba, are likely to be imprisoned.

From Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is ending a longstanding immigration policy that allows any Cuban who makes it to U.S. soil to stay and become a legal resident, a senior administration official said Thursday.

The repeal of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy is effective immediately, according the official. The decision follows months of negotiations focused in part on getting Cuba to agree to take back people who had arrived in the U.S.

The U.S. and Cuba planned to issue a joint statement late Thursday. The official insisted on anonymity in order to detail the change ahead of the announcement.

The official said the Cubans gave no assurances about treatment of those sent back to the country, but said political asylum remains an option for those concerned about persecution if they return.

The “wet foot, dry foot” policy was put in place in 1995 by President Bill Clinton as a revision of a more liberal immigration policy. Until then, Cubans caught at sea trying to make their way to the United States were allowed into the country and were able to become legal residents after a year. The U.S. was reluctant to send people back to the communist island then run by Fidel Castro, and the Cuban government also generally refused to accept repatriated citizens.

The Cuban government has in the past complained bitterly about the special immigration privileges, saying they encourage Cubans to risk dangerous escape trips and drain the country of professionals. But it has also served as a release valve for the single-party state, allowing the most dissatisfied Cubans to seek better lives outside and become sources of financial support for relatives on the island.

For a look at the cultural impact of our Cuba policy, I recommend everyone to pick up a copy of Back to Blood, by Thomas Wolfe. I also suggest viewing Peter Robinson’s interview with Wolfe, given shortly after the book came out.

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  1. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: 29

    Of course he knows that.

    • #31
  2. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Ansonia (View Comment):
    Re: 29

    Of course he knows that.

    Absolutamente.

    • #32
  3. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    I was traveling and in a hotel room with nothing else to do but watch the television the night Janet Reno raided the house in Florida and stole Elian Gonsalez from his mother’s family. Here she had died trying to get him to freedom and safety in America, and Reno took her son by force and sent him back to Fidel Castro and to a father who never had anything to do with the boy in the first place. I was so angry. I grew up watching people climb over the Berlin Wall to our open and congratulating arms. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing Clinton do.

    It is the grudge against the Clintons (and Reno was Hillary’s best friend) that I cannot let go.

    • #33
  4. Arjay Member
    Arjay
    @

    What if Hillary had won?

    • #34
  5. Turn MD Red Inactive
    Turn MD Red
    @TurnMDRed

    Boomerang (View Comment):
    “America will, per a new last-minute decree from Obama, no longer automatically grant asylum to Cubans who make it to US shores.”

    So eager is he to add one more black mark to his record.

    Thank God he’s leaving.

    Uh… you’re sure about that?

    • #35
  6. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Douglas (View Comment):

    Concretevol (View Comment):
    Syrians = Yes

    Cubans = No…….got it

    More to the point, the anchor babies of illegal aliens from Mexico vote Democrat. Cubans vote Republican. He refuses to enforce the law for the former, and is sending the latter back to a Communist country that will punish them for trying to escape. He really is a dirtbag. And I wanted to use a much stronger word than dirtbag.

    From Obama’s point of view it’s a two-fer. He wants people to live under dictatorial oppression, and he doesn’t want more Republicans in the U.S.A.

    • #36
  7. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Well her is a chance for Trump and the Republicans to undo this right away come the inauguration.

    • #37
  8. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Here’s one for Trump’s suggestion box. Open immigration from Cuba and Venezuela. Refugees from communist hell-holes make great Republicans.

    • #38
  9. Mike LaRoche Inactive
    Mike LaRoche
    @MikeLaRoche

    Deport Obama.

    • #39
  10. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Mike LaRoche (View Comment):
    Deport Obama.

    Nah, just put him on a raft and point him toward Cuba.

    • #40
  11. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Dictatorial thugs of the world unite! Or you’ll lose the people and have nothing left but their chains.

    • #41
  12. Mike LaRoche Inactive
    Mike LaRoche
    @MikeLaRoche

    Obama’s gonna put ’em all back in chains.

    • #42
  13. DocJay Inactive
    DocJay
    @DocJay

    It’s astounding what the man would do if unrestrained.   He’s a nasty vindictive person.

    • #43
  14. PsychLynne Inactive
    PsychLynne
    @PsychLynne

    When I was 16 years old,  my daddy and I were on a trip to take trash to the dump. I love these trips because we would take the trash and stop and get breakfast and have a great time. On one of these jaunts,  my dad looked at me and said he had noticed something he wanted to tell me about. He told me I had a knack with people, but I seem to know what makes them tick. Then he lowered his voice, and said  that the way he figured that out with because when I get angry or irritated, I seemed to know exactly what to say to stick the verbal knife into someone and twist it.  He also pointed out that I seem to enjoy it a bit too much.  He told me that the words “I’m sorry” don’t fix that and that I was leaving a trail of damage in my wake.

    I was devastated, and sputtered back excuses about what idiots other people were.  He told me if people can’t hear my point because of how I phrased it, it doesn’t matter how right I am.

    I think about the story a lot as I watch Obama’s actions during  his last days. He doesn’t see the damage left in his wake.  And he would rather have the self satisfaction of feeling right in the moment, then of getting the right thing done.

    • #44
  15. Tim H. Inactive
    Tim H.
    @TimH

    My Romanian step-daughter told me the news.  She’s seriously ticked off.  I agree with the suggestions that we go back to the pre-Clinton policy whereby all Cubans we pick up, on land or at sea, get preferential treatment as refugees…because they ARE refugees.

    I think two motives are behind this:

    1.  The American Left, Obama included, admires Cuba and looked up to Castro as a romantic revolutionary.  They don’t have our revulsion of its Communism or our sense of it as a disastrous failure, thinking of it instead as a noble experiment in remaking society…just incomplete.  Therefore there’s no reason we should consider Cubans as having the need to flee anything, and why should we give them special protection?
    2. Cubans tend to vote Republican.  Other Latin American immigrants tend to vote Democratic.  The president’s statements about putting Cubans on the same footing as all other “migrants” makes me think he’s got a particular motivation in taking them down a peg.
    • #45
  16. Matt Balzer Member
    Matt Balzer
    @MattBalzer

    PsychLynne (View Comment):
    He doesn’t see the damage left in his wake.

    This is what I think angers me the most. For all the talk about bubbles lately, he’s in the thickest bubble there is and nothing seems to penetrate it.

    • #46
  17. Chuckles Coolidge
    Chuckles
    @Chuckles

    I think y’all have it all wrong.

    “By taking this step,” Obama said, “we are treating Cuban migrants the same way we treat migrants from other countries.”

    His timing is a bit off, but clearly he is fixing to close the Mexican border and ship all the illegals back to the other side.

    • #47
  18. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Tim H. (View Comment):
    My Romanian step-daughter told me the news. She’s seriously ticked off. I agree with the suggestions that we go back to the pre-Clinton policy whereby all Cubans we pick up, on land or at sea, get preferential treatment as refugees…because they ARE refugees.

    I think two motives are behind this:

    1. The American Left, Obama included, admires Cuba and looked up to Castro as a romantic revolutionary. They don’t have our revulsion of its Communism or our sense of it as a disastrous failure, thinking of it instead as a noble experiment in remaking society…just incomplete. Therefore there’s no reason we should consider Cubans as having the need to flee anything, and why should we give them special protection?
    2. Cubans tend to vote Republican. Other Latin American immigrants tend to vote Democratic. The president’s statements about putting Cubans on the same footing as all other “migrants” makes me think he’s got a particular motivation in taking them down a peg.

    I agree. And I also wonder if it is retribution for the hard time we have been giving him about Syrian refugees (not of course the Christian refugees that he won’t let in) and the “refugees” from Central America.

    • #48
  19. bridget Inactive
    bridget
    @bridget

    Sabrdance (View Comment):
    OK -but is this going to last more than 8 days? It’s petulant and stupid, but the damage is limited, is it not?

    Yes… but my suspicion is that this is being done to bog down the new Administration. It makes Trump play defence in the first weeks and months of his Administration, and ensures that he chooses between repealing this nonsense and moving his agenda forward.

    The utter pettiness of this – and the harm caused to people who are oppressed, imprisoned, and killed – is its own problem.

    • #49
  20. wilber forge Inactive
    wilber forge
    @wilberforge

    Appears Fundemental Transformation unfolds in the remaining days of a petulant, conniving thin skinned con man. Bound and determined to poke so many in the eye upon while leaving. Learn anything yet.

    And he has pledged to stick around, quite sickening.

    Was there not a line in Becket the stated, Who will rid me of this Meddlesome Priest.

    • #50
  21. The Question Inactive
    The Question
    @TheQuestion

    I’m so angry I can barely form words.  For months we get lectures about how awful Trump is because he’s xenophobic.  We got lectures on being compassionate to refugees.  But then when it serves the Democrats’ interests, they close the door.

    The Democratic Party is Geryon, the monster with the face of a just man.

    • #51
  22. Dean Murphy Member
    Dean Murphy
    @DeanMurphy

    DocJay (View Comment):
    It’s astounding what the man would do if unrestrained. He’s a nasty vindictive person.

    Is he going to fill the toilets in the White House with cement?

    • #52
  23. Sabrdance Member
    Sabrdance
    @Sabrdance

    Matt Balzer (View Comment):

    PsychLynne (View Comment):
    He doesn’t see the damage left in his wake.

    This is what I think angers me the most. For all the talk about bubbles lately, he’s in the thickest bubble there is and nothing seems to penetrate it.

    Perhaps I’m simply projecting, given that I have now achieved this point myself, but what makes you think he doesn’t see the damage, as opposed to just not caring anymore?  What are we going to do to him?  Elect Donald Trump?

    bridget (View Comment):

    Sabrdance (View Comment):
    OK -but is this going to last more than 8 days? It’s petulant and stupid, but the damage is limited, is it not?

    Yes… but my suspicion is that this is being done to bog down the new Administration. It makes Trump play defence in the first weeks and months of his Administration, and ensures that he chooses between repealing this nonsense and moving his agenda forward.

    The utter pettiness of this – and the harm caused to people who are oppressed, imprisoned, and killed – is its own problem.

    Yes, it’s petty.  Though come the White Throne Judgement, I think this one will be very far down the list.  But given that a sizable chunk of the Trump vote was based on “STOP IT!  Get us back to the Status Quo Ante” rather than any positive agenda, I fail to see how simply giving him more to undo has a downside.

    • #53
  24. Sabrdance Member
    Sabrdance
    @Sabrdance

    Especially given that most of what worries me about Trump is the new things he’d do.  If Obama could rack up enough stupid to keep Trump occupied for 4 years, I might not object…

    • #54
  25. Matt Balzer Member
    Matt Balzer
    @MattBalzer

    Sabrdance (View Comment):
    Perhaps I’m simply projecting, given that I have now achieved this point myself, but what makes you think he doesn’t see the damage, as opposed to just not caring anymore? What are we going to do to him? Elect Donald Trump?

    Maybe for these last few acts that’s the case, but in general I would say that the point about his bubble still holds. He’s still the same person who graded himself with “a good, solid B+” and said that the difference between the 2006 midterms for the Republicans and the 2010 midterms for the Democrats was that the Democrats had him.

    • #55
  26. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    This is all so confusing to me. So Cubans are Certified Refugees® that Conservatives are fine with, but Syrians or Mexicans are not? And Obama differentiating the other way between them makes him evil?

    • #56
  27. Matt Balzer Member
    Matt Balzer
    @MattBalzer

    Sabrdance (View Comment):
    Especially given that most of what worries me about Trump is the new things he’d do. If Obama could rack up enough stupid to keep Trump occupied for 4 years, I might not object…

    You don’t think he already has?

    • #57
  28. Dean Murphy Member
    Dean Murphy
    @DeanMurphy

    Mike H (View Comment):
    This is all so confusing to me. So Cubans are Certified Refugees® that Conservatives are fine with, but Syrians or Mexicans are not? And Obama differentiating the other way between them makes him evil?

    I loved those skits on SNL.  Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer!

    • #58
  29. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Democrats can never understand the idea of a precedent.  They might want to start wondering what Trump might decide to do on the way out of office.

    “Today, I’m declaring the island of Manhattan to be the Manhattan Island National Wildlife Refuge.  Everyone has 30 days to vacate.”

    • #59
  30. Simon Templar Member
    Simon Templar
    @

    Mike H (View Comment):
    This is all so confusing to me. So Cubans are Certified Refugees® that Conservatives are fine with, but Syrians or Mexicans are not? And Obama differentiating the other way between them makes him evil?

    Cubans come here to assimilate.  Apparently the latest waves of Mexicans do not.  Unvetted Syrians – what’s to worry?

    US Soccer Team Viciously Booed in L.A. — Mexico was “home team”

    • #60
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