[20070122]RS20468_古巴移民政策和问题.pdf

Order Code RS20468Updated January 22, 2007Cuban Migration Policy and IssuesRuth Ellen WasemSpecialist in Immigration PolicyDomestic Social Policy DivisionSummaryMany of the issues surrounding Cuban migration are unique but not new. Normalimmigration from Cuba has been elusive since Fidel Castro came to power. Over thepast 40 years, the practice of Cubans fleeing by boat to the United States has becomecommonplace, and at some points reached the levels of a mass exodus. Since the lastupsurge of “boat people” in the mid-1990s, the United States and Cuba worked towardestablishing safe, legal immigration, which include returning migrants interdicted by theU.S. Coast Guard. These migration policies, however, are not without critics. Cubaninterdictions hit an 11-year high of 2,810 in FY2006. This report does not tracklegislation but will be updated if policies are revised.BackgroundBetween 1962 and 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans entered the United Statesunder the Attorney Generals parole authority, many of them arriving by boat. In 1980,a mass migration of asylum seekers known as the Mariel boatlift broughtapproximately 125,000 Cubans (and 25,000 Haitians) to South Florida over a s