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CUBA: RASH OF HIJACKINGS CREATES NEW TENSIONS WITH U.S.

Article Excerpt
Following the Cuban trials of 75 journalists and human rights workers (see NotiCen, 2002-05-08), an immigration crisis unlike any other is unfolding. What makes this crisis unique is that it occurs against the backdrop of President George W. Bush's war against Iraq and his threats of unlimited war against states, such as Cuba, that it considers sponsors of terrorism.

While no mass exodus from Cuba has occurred, there has been a rash of hijackings culminating in the execution in Cuba of three men involved in the failed attempt to hijack a Havana harbor ferry on April 2.

Under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, as modified in a 1999 memo by Doris Meissner, then director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, BCIS), Cuban immigrants may be granted parole status whether they arrive by legal or illegal means.

The memo reassured Cubans that it was not necessary for them to ask for political asylum, as other illegal immigrants must do to win release under parole and eventual residence status (see NotiCen, 1999-05-13).

Cuba and the US agreed in the 1994, 1995 migratory accords to encourage Cubans to seek legal means of departure by applying for US visas. Cuba promised to discourage "irregular and unsafe departures."

The agreement requires the US to intercept boat people (balseros) and return them to Cuba but does not require the return of Cubans who make it ashore. This gave rise to the wet-foot/dry-foot policy: wet foot is turned away, dry foot stays in the US.

To make all this work, the US promised to...

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