The New Immigrant Bogeymen: Cubans
24th February 2016
Record numbers of refugees from Fidel Castro’s failed communist experiment are streaming into the United States — not just across the Florida Straits, but especially over the U.S.-Mexico border. During the last three months of 2015, more than 12,000 Cubans knocked on our southern door. This year’s migration is on pace to double the previous high.
In stark, resentment-sowing contrast to other migrants from Latin America, Cubans are greeted in the U.S. with cash, access to welfare and a path to citizenship. That’s all thanks to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. But now many politicians are asking whether, during this period of Washington-Havana thaw, it’s time to revamp this Cold War-era preference.