Last Cubans To Enter The United States

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

José Antonio Silva feels like an extremely lucky man after the whim of chance made him the last Cuban to benefit Thursday from the “dry feet, wet feet” policy that allowed visa-free Cubans to stay in the United States.

"Thank God I was able to get in," Silva, a 35-year-old computer teacher from Puerto Padre, told a reporter for the McClatchy newspaper chain after crossing from Mexico through the Laredo, Texas border post. "I was the last one."

It was 7 p.m. and literally behind him the border was closed by the tens of thousands of Cubans who have crossed in the last 20 years to leave behind the economic and political problems of their country in order to start a new life in the United States.

By that time, President Barack Obama's order, promulgated without prior notice, repealing the "dry feet, wet feet" policy adopted by the Bill Clinton administration in 1995 in response to the raft crisis of the previous year. and that it allowed Cubans to enter without a visa, to subsequently access the residence.

Silva was able to enter after the deadline, he explained, because he had submitted the documents just in time. Shortly before, Yuniesky Marcos Roque had done it with his 7-year-old son Kevin, who was told by the border agent who attended them that he was the last to enter.

"I am very excited. I came for him, so that he has a better future. I am relieved to have succeeded, but sad for those who have been waiting on the bridge, "he added to McClatchy.

In fact, the Obama administration decided to announce without notice the immediate repeal of immigration policy to avoid a massive departure of Cubans, either by the Mexican border or crossing the dangerous strait of Florida that separates Cuba from the United States.

The measure plunged into anguish the hundreds, if not thousands, of Cubans estimated to be in transit to the United States in Mexico and Central America, who in many cases have spent large amounts of money to achieve their goal.

"We lost everything," Cuban José Enrique Manresa, who is at the Jesús del Buen Pastor shelter in Tapachula, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, told the BBC. "The whole journey we did was of no use to us, risking our lives."

Despite the fact that Obama's decision eight days after the end of his presidency made everyone suspicious, many Cubans feared that the normalization of relations between the two countries could lead to the repeal of this migratory privilege.

Since the relationship thawed in January 2014, the number of Cubans who have arrived in the United States has practically doubled from year to year.