Cuba to welcome back many who left

Posted on Friday, 10.26.12

Cuba to welcome back many who left

Under new migration regulations, rafters, athletes and many other Cubans
who left the island will be allowed to return.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuba said Thursday it will welcome back tens of thousands of its
citizens who left illegally — including rafters, doctors and baseball
players — in the second round of a migration reform it claims will help
normalize relations with Cubans abroad.

Havana has barred the return of rafters since its 1994 migration accord
with the U.S. government in order to deter risky escapes across the
Florida Straits. But the ban is not part of the accord and is not
expected to affect the agreement or U.S. policy.

"We will normalize the temporary entry to the island of those who
emigrated illegally after the 1994 migration accords," Homero Acosta,
secretary of the ruling Council of State, announced in a television
appearance late Wednesday.

Also allowed to return will be medical personnel and top athletes who
left illegally or defected while abroad after 1990 and who have been out
for more than eight years, as well as Cubans who left when they were 16
or younger and those who want to return for humanitarian reasons, like
caring for ailing relatives.

The change is expected to allow the return of many Cubans now banned
from the island, estimated any anywhere from 70,000 — mostly rafters —
to 300,000, including important Cubans branded by Havana as defectors
and even traitors.

Still banned are those who escaped through the U.S. Navy base in
Guantánamo in southeastern Cuba, Acosta added, "for reasons of defense
and national security." Havana also can ban the return of those who
"organize, encourage or participate in hostile actions against the
political, economic and social basis of the state," and anyone at all
"when reasons of defense and national security require it."

Cuban ruler Raúl Castro announced last year that he wanted to reform the
country's migration regulations "as a contribution to the growth in the
links between the nation and the communities of its emigrants."

But most analysts outside the island believe Castro wants to squeeze
more money out of migration so that he can finance the dramatic economic
reforms that he has been pushing since 2007.

"It is time to do justice to the poorest of the migrants, the rafters,
even if this will generate tens of millions of dollars for the
government by way of passport and other fees," said Pedro Gonzalez
Munne, a Miami businessman who monitors travel to Cuba.

The fee for Cuban passports rose from $60 to about $110 in the first
round of migration reforms announced last week, which lifted the hated
requirement of exit permits for Cubans who want to travel abroad. Havana
retained the right to block any travel.

"I have to submit a humanitarian request so that someone can decide
whether to allow me to return to where I was born? … Big deal!" said
Juan Antonio Blanco, a former analyst with the Cuban Communist Party's
Central Committee now living in Miami.

Although the number of Cubans living abroad is critically important for
its economy — cash remittances were estimated at more than $2 billion in
2011 alone — the exact details of the migration flows are almost
impossible to obtain.

Nearly 2 million Cubans are estimated to have emigrated since Fidel
Castro seized power in 1959, and about 85 percent now live in the United
States.

Cuba's National Statistical Office (ONE) reported that 400,000 citizens
living abroad visited the island in 2011, including 300,000 who live in
the United States. The émigré arrivals are sometimes listed in the
official arrivals count as "other Caribbeans."

The number of rafters banned from returning has been estimated at 70,000
— the 35,000 who left during the Rafter Crisis in 1994, when Fidel
Castro opened the doors to anyone who wanted to leave, plus those who
escaped afterward. About 14,500 rafters arrived on U.S. shores in Fiscal
Year 2005 to 2012 alone.

The U.S. and Cuban government signed migration pacts in 1994 and 1995 to
end that crisis and assure safe migration. The pact requires the U.S. to
deliver 20,000 visas to Cuban migrants per year.

Havana officials have told employees of Miami companies that handle
trips to the island that the number of citizens on their don't-come-back
list in fact totals 300,000, including senior government defectors,
sports figures and medical personnel.

One travel company employee said that 1 or 2 percent of Cuban Americans
who request Havana's permission to visit the island get rejected, with
notices from Cuban authorities saying "Cannot Board. Illegal Exit."

Acosta also complained that Cuba has an unfair image as a country that
does not allow its people to travel abroad freely, "a great prison or
tropical gulag."

He boasted that 99.4 percent of those who requested exit permits to make
personal trips abroad between 2000 and 2012 received them — a total of
941,953 people.

That works out to 78,496 Cubans allowed to travel abroad per year for a
country with a population of 11.2 million people. The U.S. Department of
Commerce estimated that 30 million U.S. residents travelled abroad in
2009 alone.

Acosta added that out of the 941,953, those who did not return totaled
120,705, for a defection rate about 10,000 a year or 12.8 percent. That
number does not include Cubans who leave illegally or those who leave
with migrant visas.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/26/v-fullstory/3067760/cuba-to-welcome-back-many-who.html