‘La Joven Cuba’ Blog Questions Official Position on the Cuban Adjustment Act

Havana/In an unusual gesture of criticism toward an official position, the blog “La Joven Cuba” (Young Cuba) published a post on Tuesday that challenges the Cuban government’s approach to the Cuban Adjustment Act.

The site, run by graduates of the University of Matanzas, stresses “the need of more than a few fellow countrymen to emigrate,” and defends the thesis that Cubans who want to reside in another country will do so regardless of whether conditions are better or worse. The article, signed by Roberto G. Peralo and titled “Eliminate the Cuban Adjustment Act and What,” uses an example close to him as an illustration.

“A woman friend who is a doctor was preparing to emigrate to Ecuador. She had a job lined up at a clinic. When she learned that the government of Ecuador wouldn’t recognize her license to practice her profession, she told me, ‘I’m going even if I have to clean the hospital floor for the rest of my life.’”

The author defends the Cuban government’s asking for the elimination of the law which also provides an advantage for Cubans over other immigrants and believes that the United States will end up repealing it. However, he believes that this will not improve things because Cubans will continue leaving and will do it in even worse circumstances.

“Cubans who reach the United States without the Adjustment Act will have to submit to the exploitation that other illegal immigrants are subjected to. They will not receive government benefits and will have to take the worst jobs at the most miserable wages. In the best of cases they will have to renounce returning to Cuba, even to visit, to be able to support the thesis that they are “politically persecuted,” so that they can receive government benefits.

The Joven Cuba website, which has also suffered censorship within the University of Matanzas, is a part of the sector relatively critical of the government, although from a “revolutionary” position that leads to censoring dissent and opposing a market economy.

In the official discourse the Cuban Adjustment Act is the target of the worse criticisms and is held responsible for the exodus of Cubans to the United States. On national television the presenters call it “The Assassin Law” and hold it entirely responsible for the current migratory crisis provoked by the arrival of more than 2,000 Cubans at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

This Wednesday, the newspaper Granma published a note on the meeting of the foreign ministers of the member countries of the Central American Integration System – Cuba, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico – to seek a solution to the drama of the Cuban migrants. As the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma noted the unanimous rejection of “the Cuban Adjustment Act and other regulations related to the wet foot-dry foot policy and the Parole Program for Cuban Healthcare Professionals, which stimulates illegal immigration to the United States.”