Cubans (not) coming in the US

[cema]

Shame.

Fifteen Cubans who fled their homeland and landed on an abandoned bridge piling in the Florida Keys were returned to their homeland Monday after U.S. officials concluded that the structure did not constitute dry land.

Generally, I agree that illegal immigrant should not be treated the same way as legal immigrants, though I do not count illegal immigration (by itself) a particularly serious crime. However, the dry/wet policy regarding Cuban refugees is simply shameful. Let them all come ashore! Let them live here! And make them all legal.

Comments

[spamsink]

That's fine. Nobody forces anyone to play that game.

[capka3m.livejournal.com]

'Fear factor' is the game. 'The Amazing Race' is the game. This ain't - they _really_ risked their lives to get to that stupid bridge. Maybe they "lost", but I'd prefer the Government to act with a little more decency than a fucking reality TV show host.

[spamsink]

Who says that a game cannot be dangerous? It's a nonessential voluntary activity that the organizer chooses to reward with a prize, and the participants choose to engage in. As far as I'm concerned, if a government decides to grant a privilege to anyone who jumps from the 5th floor and survives, a) anyone who attempts that does not value his life much, and b) it's no reason to argue that anyone who jumps from the 3rd floor must get that privilege.

As far as the decency goes, I have no objections to the U.S. eliminating that game whatsoever, but I bet the Cuban lobby in Florida thinks otherwise. Who do you think is behind perpetuating the game?

[cema.livejournal.com]

When you spent 2 years in the Soviet Army, did you choose to play that game or were forced to play it?

[spamsink]

It was far from voluntary, therefore was not a game by definition. On the other hand, I refused to play the game of faking a medical condition in order to avoid it.

[cema.livejournal.com]

And just like that, life in Cuba is not a game: people are forced to live by the rules they abhor. So they are trying to leave, to avoid the game. The US is both luring them and setting the idiotic rules (the dry/wet feet policy is a prime example). I think the rules are shameful and need to be changed. And I think that the rules that forced us in the military service should have been changed too (and they were, for a while anyway).

[spamsink]

to avoid the game

It's not a game to them, they did not make any choice. It's their life. (Tough shit, so what?) If they do not like it, they can use any means available to avoid it, even stupid, dangerous and shameful - from a 3rd party POV - games if they so choose, that happen to exist at the time. I do not see any ground for a claim that any particular possibility for them to escape must exist. Again, the ex-Cuban lobby wants that game to continue, and the Government has to limit the extent of it as much as possible, up to the verge of eliminating it, without displeasing that lobby.

BTW, I reject the notion of "luring" altogether; people are not fish nor moth, they can reason and weigh risks and rewards before making a conscious choice to respond to an overt (or covert, for that matter) advertisement.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Right, it's life. Could be better.

I did not use the word "must" because it is, in this context, ambiguous. "Must" philosophically? Legally? Ethically? I just think that the situation is shameful.

I did use the word "luring" in the sense which is not available to the fish or moth (not to the earthly kind, anyhow): the US offers these people certain opportunities. Yes, they have to weigh this against the dangers, as usual. That is normal. What is not normal is some of the rules the US set.

[capka3m.livejournal.com]

All right, your definitions are fine. But I guess I would have hard time accepting explanations in terms of 'nonessential' and 'game' from the same government that views travel to Cuba as 'trading with the enemy'

If we were Canada, I probably would have agreed with you. But if the US consistently viewed Cuban regime as sick totalitarian illegitimate monster, returning defectors is not a morally defendable act. Now, if you're telling me you'd end the embargo and restore diplomatic relations and resume travel and... but that's all hypothetical.

[spamsink]

The government has to balance the duty of enforcement of immigration laws to its taxpayers and the magnanimity of helping the oppressed in the world. The balance in this case has been established in a particular way. Once one retreats from the established practice, a slippery slope is unavoidable - how far from the shore, should it be U.S. territorial waters, or is it enough for them to escape from Cuban territorial waters into international, etc, etc.

During Soviet times, the U.S. would grant political asylum to people from the USSR who defected while in the U.S., but it was not enough to walk to the American embassy (ostensibly an American territory) and ask the guard to shelter you. How hypocritical and morally reprehensible is that?

[cema.livejournal.com]

It was hypocritical and morally reprehensible.

[spamsink]

Foolish consistency is a hobgoblin of small minds.

[cema.livejournal.com]

I am not asking for consistency. I am asking for decency.

[spamsink]

I see no reason why that policy was indecent. Giving political asylum for any group of people as a policy, rather that on a personal basis, is already a significant act of good will, and claiming that a particular restriction is indecent is counterproductive.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Couterproductive? What is our goal? I thought the goal (or a subgoal, as the case may be) was to help Cubans who are fleeing Cuba to obtain a legal status in the US. Then the distinction between the "dry feet" and "wet feet" is silly and shameful. (And, yes, counterproductive, if you want to look at it in this aspect.)

[spamsink]

We're into listing goals? (Personally, I don't have any goals regarding this matter, but I believe that the government might have some of these, and possibly more)

Here you go:

1. Limiting the influx of illegal immigrants.
2. Acknowledging the asylee status of Cubans who entered U.S. illegally as per Cuban lobby request.
3. Establishing a clear-cut policy wrt the Cubans in (2) in order to achieve (1).

The combination of these factors requires a policy that is simple, unequivocal, understandable by even the most dense person who could be involved in the asylum status dispute.

Any more lax policy (how about formulating one?) will eventually (as a result of lobbying + suing) result in the Coast Guard having to engage in business of specificaly looking for the rafts for at least 12 nm of territorial waters and being held accountable for any death at sea of a Cuban "rafter".

[cema.livejournal.com]

Well, since you have used the word "counterproductive", I would have thought you had some kind of goal in mind.

1. There are fundamentally two ways to achive this: (1) reduce immigration or (2) make the legal entry easier.

2, 3 are important, I think. I am not sure how easy it is for the federal government to put together a "simple, unequivocal, understandable" policy; it is possible, but requires a lot of guts.

Coast Guard is doing a good job, generally speaking, but the courts have to enforce the policy. SO the problem is with the policy makers.

[anhinga-anhinga.livejournal.com]

> but it was not enough to walk to the American embassy (ostensibly an American territory) and ask the guard to shelter you

Mostly because it was very difficult to move these people to the US afterwards. The Soviets did not agree to treat them as "diplomatic mail".

But some refugees were living in the embassy most of the time...