December - The Donald Trump administration, for the first time, placed new Cuban immigrants in a legal limbo that could lead to their deportation. In this way, the relationship between the privileges granted to Cuban immigration—unparalleled in U.S. history—and the role played by these migrants in that country's policy against Cuba was undermined.
According to the latest data from the United States Census Bureau, about 2.5 million people of Cuban origin live in the country, which accounts for 80% of the emigration originating from Cuba and their descendants.
Around 1.8 million, that is, 72%, were born in Cuba, confirming an extraordinary increase in migration in recent years, since in 2020 this proportion hovered around 50% of the Cuban-American population.
In the 2022-2023 biennium, approximately 625,000 Cubans were processed by the U.S. Border Patrol (CBP). Although they left Cuba legally, without pending causes or obstacles to return, they presented themselves to U.S. authorities as applicants for political asylum. Almost all were accepted temporarily, but with the advantage that after one year of residency in that country, they could apply under the Cuban Adjustment Act and obtain permanent residence in the United States.
Another 110,000 Cuban immigrants entered those years through the so-called "humanitarian parole," established by the Biden administration for several groups of immigrants of various nationalities. They were also pending immigration adjustment, but in the case of Cubans, they could likewise resolve it through the Adjustment Act, established solely for them.
The problem arose when the Donald Trump administration rejected the legitimacy of these processes and for the first time placed Cuban immigrants in a legal limbo that could lead to their deportation. In this way, the relationship between the privileges granted to Cuban immigration—unparalleled in U.S. history—and the role played by these migrants in that country's policy against Cuba was violated.
In the Cuban case, the United States implemented mechanisms to incentivize emigration that it has not repeated with any other country. Their objectives have been to drain the economy of its human capital, introduce a factor of instability into society, create the social base of the counterrevolution abroad, and discredit the revolutionary process on an international scale.
Cuban migrants were then indiscriminately accepted in that country; they could quickly obtain residency and benefit from specific programs for their settlement and integration into American society. The Miami “golden exile” was built on these premises, as well as on others that were more twisted.
Violating the law that prohibits its operation within the national territory, for the war against Cuba, the CIA established the largest station in the world in Miami and invested large resources in creating an operational infrastructure that catapulted Cuban immigrants into positions of privilege in the economic and political life of the region.
With the impunity resulting from this association, Cuban counterrevolutionaries organized the most lethal and ruthless terrorist groups on the continent, collaborated with the crimes of extreme-right dictatorships and Latin American criminal gangs, assassinated people within U.S. territory itself, and imposed far-right positions in Miami's local politics.
Many Cuban Americans also functioned as operators, bankers, and legal assistants for the drug trafficking networks established in South Florida at the end of the last century, turning the region into one of the main entry points for drugs into the United States.
Miami, which already bore a past dominated by the mafia and corruption, became the epicenter of anti-Cuban policy and the capital of the Latin American right. This placed Cuban Americans on the far right of the U.S. political spectrum, an orientation quite foreign to Cuban traditions but adapted to the American “Deep South,” where they have settled.
From this platform, Cuban American power groups were organized and rose within the U.S. political structure, reaching their peak in the current administration of Donald Trump, when Florida was chosen as the president’s refuge—pursued by New York courts—and the headquarters of the MAGA movement.
This is a fairly well-known story so far. The paradox is that the rise of Cuban American politicians to more relevant positions within the U.S. political system corresponds with the absolute deterioration of the privileges that, until now, have distinguished Cubans from other immigrants in the United States.
Various reasons explain this phenomenon. First of all, the strategy against Cuba, which justified exceptional treatment for Cuban immigrants, has changed. Inspired by a proposal from the Cuban-American right wing, the U.S. government no longer encourages emigration but rather restricts it to the maximum, in order to increase domestic social tensions. As a result, the Cuban-American right wing, which largely rose in American politics through the leverage of the exceptional status of Cuban immigrants, is now complicit in their repression.
Secondly, the privileges granted to Cuban immigration were possible in a different economic environment and through treatment that equated them with the white middle class in the United States—something that does not align with the current needs of the system nor with the anti-immigrant and xenophobic philosophy that serves as cohesion for the political base of Trumpism.
Furthermore, what was once the relatively acceptable white, bourgeois immigration that formed the so-called “historic Cuban exile” of the first decades has transformed into a "despicable Latin riffraff" as popular sectors began to join the Cuban migratory flow.
Why are Cuban-American politicians exempt from this discriminatory logic? Because, in reality, it is not a problem of race or national origin but ultimately of class: even the president’s wife and the richest man in the country are immigrants, and in these cases, few remember this "accident."
While Cuban-American magnates and the politicians who represent them enjoy the advantages offered by Trumpism, Cuban immigrants have been lumped in with “every single damned country that has been flooding our nation with murderers, parasites, and welfare addicts,” as said by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
As a result, the doors for Cuban emigration are closed; they are not even accepted for visits, and those who arrived in recent years face limited possibilities of benefiting from the Adjustment Act or any other benefits they once enjoyed. Even the processes for residency and citizenship for earlier arrivals are frozen, and a “deep review of those already processed” has been announced.
For the first time, Cuban immigrants live in fear of ICE raids on the streets of Miami and being deported to Cuba or any other country in the world. Work permits have been canceled, and even bank accounts can be seized if the legality of their immigration status in the United States is not proven.
What impact could this situation have on the political behavior of the Cuban-American community, the only group of Latino voters that predominantly supported Donald Trump in the last elections?
Although those who voted for Trump—namely, those who are citizens—have not been the most adversely affected by this policy and many of them may even join in the discrimination against their own community, as often happens in American society, at least some must feel affected by the climate of insecurity and disdain that has been established by this government, and this could be reflected in their political behavior.
This does not mean that major changes are expected in the political structure controlling the Cuban-American community, since the influence of the far right has never depended on the actual capacity of this vote, but rather on the roles they perform within the system and their connection with sectors of American power, especially those linked to the Republican Party.
Nor is a “revolution” in the ideological sphere to be expected, where the conservatism of most Cuban-Americans is associated not only with the conflict with the Cuban Revolution but also with the prevailing reactionary currents in the state of Florida itself, regardless of which party governs. Added to this is the difficulty of breaking the rules of the traditional consensus that link people with their reference group, especially when these have served to rationalize such a traumatic decision as emigrating from one’s country of origin.
In summary, it is very unlikely that a figure like Zohran Mandani would be elected by Cuban-Americans, but the discontent with Donald Trump’s policies could lead to the defeat of one of the three Republican Cuban-American congressmen in the state—who are practically the main spokespersons of the Cuban-American far right in Congress—and this would imply a significant change in the existing political dynamics.
A not insignificant signal, although it should not be solely attributed to changes in the Cuban-American vote, is the recent election of Eileen Higgins as mayor of Miami, decisively defeating a candidate publicly backed by Donald Trump himself. She is the first woman to govern the city, as well as the first Democrat and non-Cuban-American to hold that office in the last thirty years.
Cuba is also facing a novel situation regarding the migration phenomenon. Although, amid a very unfavorable economic situation, the restrictions on emigration will indeed increase domestic tensions, it is also true that curbing the migratory influx benefits the country, given its impact on the economy, demographics, and social psychology.
Therefore, a review of the existing policy is imperative, requiring significant economic and social changes to offer viable alternatives to potential migrants, anticipate the treatment of returnees, and establish innovative mechanisms for the integration into national life of Cubans living abroad. The ties with their families must be strengthened as migration possibilities decrease. The responses cannot be the usual ones, as the challenges are different.
(Taken from Cubadebate with information from Progreso Weekly Semanal)
