Illegal Immigration Reform

On September 30, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). This law contained provisions aimed at reforming both legal and illegal immigration. The IIRIRA had then provided an additional five thousand Border Patrol agents to help out over a five-year period, which had just about doubled the size of the Border Patrol. This new law had also imposed three and ten year bans on the legal entry of undocumented immigrants who had previously been apprehended and deported back to Cuba.

The United States and Cuba have not always been at odds. In the late 1800s, the United States was purchasing 87% of Cuba's exports and had control over most of Cuba’s sugar industry. In
the 1950s, Havana's resorts and casinos were some of the most popular destinations for American tourists and celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and Ernest Hemingway.

By Jan. 1, 1959, Fidel Castro had overthrown U.S President Batista and established Cuba as the first Communist state in the Western Hemisphere. From 1959 to 1960, Castro seized $1.8 billion of US assets in Cuba, making it the largest uncompensated taking of American property by a foreign government in US history. Depending on how interest is calculated, claims on the seized assets range from $6.4 to $20.1 billion in 2012 dollars. (Page 30, History of U.S. Cuba Relations).

The US government was also concerned about the threat posed by having a new Soviet ally so close to America's shores.
Therefore, On Oct. 19, 1960, President Eisenhower signed a partial embargo on exports to Cuba, the first step towards the U.S. policy that exists today. Eisenhower ended diplomatic relations with Cuba and closed the US embassy in Havana on Jan. 3, 1961, saying "There is a limit to what the United States in self-respect can endure. That limit has now been reached." The former embassy building would later serve as the site of the US Interests Section (a de facto embassy) opened by President Carter in 1977. (Page 83, History of U.S. Cuba
Relations).

Pro and Con arguments of continuing to have the United States maintain its Embargo against Cuba. Some Pros are: The United States should maintain the Cuba embargo because Cuba has not met the conditions required to lift it. (Proclamation 3447 signed by President Kennedy on Feb. 3, 1962). He established the embargo against Cuba to reduce "the threat posed by its alignment with the communist powers." The embargo was strengthened by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act and the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad Act of 1996) also known as Helms-Burton, which specified conditions for terminating the embargo. According to US law, Cuba must legalize all political activity, release all political prisoners, commit to free and fair elections in the transition to representative democracy, grant freedom to the press, respect internationally recognized human rights, and allow labor unions. Since Cuba has not met these conditions, the embargo should not be lifted

Ending the embargo before the Cuban government meets the conditions specified by US law would make the United States look weak. Lifting the sanctions unilaterally would be an act of appeasement that would give Cuba ideas of joining forces with other countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, China, and Iran to promote anti-American sentiments or socialism in the Western Hemisphere. Therefore, the United States should not risk sending the message that it can be waited out or that seizing US property in foreign countries, as Castro did in Cuba when he took power, will be tolerated.

The Cuban government has consistently responded to US attempts to soften the embargo with acts of aggression, raising concerns about what would happen if the sanctions were fully lifted.
President Carter tried to normalize relations with Cuba by opening the U.S. Interests Section (a de facto embassy) in Havana in 1977. "Immigration Policy (1976 to Present)." In Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History, edited by Richard M. Valelly, vol. 7. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010. http://library.cqpress.com/usph/eusphv7_215.1.understood the situation best, think the embargo is not working. More than 80% of Cuban Americans that had been surveyed in 2011, said that the embargo has not worked very well or not at all. Even though President Obama eased restrictions related to Cuba in 2009, his support among Cuban Americans in Florida increased from a third of the community in 2008 to more than half in the 2012 presidential election. (Page 55, Cuba
Embargo).

Some interesting facts concerning the relations between Cuba and the United States are; President John F. Kennedy sent his press secretary to buy 1,200 Cuban cigars the night before he signed the embargo in Feb. 1962. The US policy on Cuban migration is known as "wet foot/dry foot" because if a Cuban is interdicted at sea ("wet foot"), she will be returned to Cuba, but if she manages to reach land ("dry foot"), she will be permitted to stay in the United States.

The United Nations has denounced the U.S. embargo against Cuba for 22 straight years. The vote against the embargo was 188-2 in 2013, with only Israel supporting the United States. The United States began exporting food to Cuba following a devastating hurricane in 2001 and it is now the island's second-largest food supplier. This has made the annual food sales to Cuba peaked at $710 million in 2008. Also, another interesting fact is that there were an estimated total of 6,602 political detentions in Cuba in 2012, which is among the world's highest on a per capita basis. (Page 82, Cuba Embargo).