Development & Aid, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, Population

POPULATION: For Cubans, Emigration is ‘Forever’

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, May 19 2004 (IPS) - The dream of travelling to another country in search of opportunities, to help support one’s family and someday return to the homeland, is an impossible dream if the emigrant is Cuban.

Although since the 1980s Cubans living abroad have had the right to return for a visit or even to apply for special permission to live here again after the age of 60, leaving the country still basically means ”forever” for Cubans.

While some professionals or artists obtain permits to reside ”temporarily” in Europe or other countries of Latin America, most Cuban emigrés head to the United States, with an exit permit that does not allow them to move back.

”When you go to Miami, you know you’re losing all of your rights in Cuba, including the ownership of your housing unit,” a 37-year-old woman, who is waiting for the completion of the paperwork that will allow her to move abroad with her husband and daughter, told IPS.

”Our assets have already been inventoried,” she added, preferring not to be identified by name. ”Luckily, we had time to sell a few things. That’s what we used to pay for the documents we needed, and to live on. My husband and I left our jobs when we received our exit permits.”

If she or her family return for a visit, they will have to stay in the home of a relative or in a hotel. And if any member of the family wishes to move back to Cuba, they will have to wait until they are at least 60 to apply for special permission, under Cuban law.

Cuban migration flows cannot escape the impact of the conflict between this socialist Caribbean island nation and its giant neighbour, the United States, that began shortly after the January 1959 triumph of the revolution led by Fidel Castro, which overthrew dictator Fulgencio Baptista.

For decades, Cuban authorities automatically considered anyone who wished to emigrate an ”unpatriotic enemy” and ”political adversary” of the socialist system.

It was not until the 1990s that official sources and academic studies in Cuba began to acknowledge that economic reasons and the desire for family reunification were major motivations moving people to leave the country.

A study by researchers Consuelo Martín and Guadalupe Pérez, published by the Political Publishing House of the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee, recognised that many people emigrated to escape the severe economic crisis that hit Cuba in the 1990s in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and east European socialist bloc, with which Havana enjoyed privileged aid and trade relations.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shrank 34.8 percent between 1990 and 1993. The economic meltdown triggered a massive exodus by around 30,000 Cubans in August 1994 and led to a plunge in living standards, which have not yet returned to pre-crisis levels.

The study by Martín and Pérez states that a sharp rise was seen in emigration – especially unauthorised emigration – in the 1990s as more and more people sought to go abroad in an attempt to improve their living conditions.

Sources at the University of Havana Centre for Studies on International Migration estimated in the late 1990s that between 490,000 and 700,000 of Cuba’s 11 million people would emigrate if they could.

Cuban authorities say Washington manipulates migration issues for political ends by granting asylum and special privileges to any Cuban immigrant, legal or undocumented, who sets foot on U.S. soil.

A Mexican ”emigrates to the United States; a Cuban ‘flees’ there,” and once in U.S. territory, ”any Central American is an ‘immigrant’, while any Cuban is an ‘asylum-seeker’,” Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque complained Tuesday.

Around 1.5 million Cubans live outside of the country, including 1.3 million in the United States.

After Miami, Florida, the biggest Cuban communities are in Spain, home to 70,000 Cubans, and Venezuela, 50,000.

Although what is usually referred to as the Cuban exile community in southern Florida has significant financial and political clout, people of Cuban origin or descent actually comprise just four percent of the 36 million Latinos in the United States, and a mere 0.4 percent of the total U.S. population.

More than 50,000 Cubans are also currently living abroad under ”temporary permits”, which must be renewed every year at the country’s consular offices.

”Emigrating is a right; moving abroad is a decision that is up to each individual,” said Pérez Roque.

He ruled out, nevertheless, the possibility of eliminating the ”exit permit” that Cubans must obtain before they can travel abroad.

According to the minister, the requisite will be waived only when Cuba ceases to be a target of U.S. aggression; Washington stops manipulating the migration issue for political purposes; and the United States puts an end to strategies aimed at drawing away Cuban professionals, or fomenting ”brain drain”.

To travel for personal reasons, Cubans need a letter of invitation from a close relative, a friend or an institution. With that document, they must then apply for an exit permit – which may or may not be granted.

Foreign embassies in Havana usually require Cubans to show an exit permit stamped in their passports before the process of applying for an entrance visa can even begin.

Airlines, meanwhile, require a passport stamped with an exit permit as well as an entrance visa to the country of destination before they will sell tickets to local residents in Cuba.

Despite the restrictions and the complex, costly paperwork, more than 113,000 Cubans travelled abroad last year, including around 40,000 for personal reasons, according to sources at the Foreign Ministry.

After working for nearly two years in Chile, one 42-year-old Cuban academic travelled back to Havana to take care of a few legal questions, stayed longer than he planned, and is now trying to figure out ”how to leav e again.”

Whatever ends up happening, he does not see the United States as an option: ”I have my family, friends and home here. Miami would mean breaking with all of that, and instead I can find a middle way, coming and going without losing my ties to Cuban institutions,” he explained.