Last week, 5 Central Americans countries came to an agreement
to help thousands of stranded Cuban immigrants make their way to the United
States.
Nicaragua decided to close their borders to the
some 8,000 Cubans traveling north from Columbia and Ecuador trying to make
their way to America. A group of the Cubans will be flown to El Salvador and
then taken to Mexico on buses to get around the obstacle of Nicaragua closing
its borders.
While the idea of
8000 new Cuban immigrants coming to the country is intimidating for some, the
trends have shown similar numbers in past years. There was a dramatic increase
of immigrants particularly after Obama stated that relations between the U.S.
and Cuba were mending.
In 2015, more than
43,000 Cubans entered the U.S. at ports of entry. This is said to be a 78%
increase over previous years. This is due partly to the Obama administration’s
decision in 2009 to ease restrictions on Americans traveling there and Cuba’s
decision in 2013 to relax exit controls on Cubans seeking to leave the country.
The Cuban
immigrants is welcomed by the U.S. once they set foot on American soil. The
Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 grants special privileges to Cubans. They are the
only country in the world that if the Immigrants stay in the U.S., after a year
and a day they will be granted a green card.
With the news
reporting a lot on immigration recently, people think that the U.S. – Cuban
relations could shift. But the government, specifically the Department of
Homeland Security, shut that down saying that no changes will be made.
How would you think that the recent immigration news effect
the allowance of Cubans to America?
How does the closing of Nicaragua’s borders effect not only
the immigrants but Cuba and the U.S.?
1 comment:
Hopefully recent news about immigration won't affect the US-Cuban relations, but unfortunately with Donald Trump's mass appeal to many Americans he carries the power to convince a sizable number of the US population of his ideology that the US needs to block out the flow of immigrants. Trump isn't a politician, so unless he actually becomes president, he has no say in how the US decides to deal with the flow of Cuban immigrants. As for Nicaragua, I have no idea why they would want to stop the Cubans from making their way to the US, but it is definitely going to have a negative impact on US-Cuban immigration relations.
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