OPINION:
The Biden administration met with Cuban regime officials last week Thursday with the hope of striking a deal that would enable the U.S. to repatriate a record number of migrants who emigrated from the island.
The meeting comes after more than a year of pressure from far-left progressives to engage with the regime and lift Trump-era sanctions, and at a time when the Biden administration is wrestling with a tsunami of immigrants crossing the southern border.
The purported need for the meeting stems from the fact that unlike most other governments, Cuba has not accepted U.S. deportation flights for the past six months. This, despite the fact 40,000 Cubans are currently saddled with court-ordered deportation orders. A State Dept. spokesperson told Reuters that “Cubans currently occupy the second-largest group arriving at the southwest border.”
None of this should come as a surprise to U.S. officials since the Cuban regime has historically and manipulatively sparked similar crises as a way to generate political capital with the United States and create an escape valve to eject opposition members from the island. Points in case: the Mariel Boatlift in the 1980s and the Special Period in the 1990s, in which the Cuban regime encouraged tens of thousands of Cubans to risk their lives by rafting across treacherous seas to reach America.
The former case in 1980 created a Cuban population surge in Miami, and many of the 125,000 “Marielitos” sent from Havana were prisoners and street people Fidel Castro wanted expelled. “I have flushed the toilets of Cuba into the United States!” Castro proudly proclaimed. This tactic backfired as many of the prisoners were political prisoners who built a formidable opposition community to Castro in Miami.
The latter instance occurred in the 1990s during the so-called “Special Period” after Cuba plunged into economic depression as a result of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Threatening speeches from Castro prompted tens of thousands to leave by raft, creating a mass exodus that compelled former President Bill Clinton to negotiate with Castro and ultimately enact the “Wet Foot, Dry Foot” policy that gave Cubans asylum only if they reached U.S. shore.
The Cuban regime is now blaming U.S. sanctions for its crumbling economy, and in an act of desperation, the ailing communist apparatus turned to their Nicaraguan allies who have proven to be most accommodating by removing all visa requirements for Cubans.
The effect of this maneuver once again sparked an understandable migration drive, compelling Cubans to sell their worldly possessions to secure a plane ticket to Managua. Once on the Central American mainland, Cubans were then able to avoid the high seas and instead join the ranks of the migrant caravans headed toward the southern border.
Until yesterday’s meeting in Washington, the Biden administration had held its ground despite pressure from the left to remove effective economic sanctions that have sent the regime into an economic tailspin.
But news of Thursday’s meeting sent the Cuban exile community into a fury.
“The regime is once again playing the State Department like a fiddle,” Miami-based lawyer and influential Cuban exile leader, Marcell Felipe told the Times. “They generate these crises specifically to get the attention and concessions from the U.S. government, and it is a mistake for the Biden administration to play into it. It is a particularly egregious time for the United States to extend any olive branch to the regime when after last year’s peaceful protests so many innocents remain languishing in prison. U.S. policy needs to shift from being reactive to proactive by taking the lead and targeting regime change.”
We agree.
In any potential negotiations with Cuba’s oppressive communist regime, the United States must take charge and only negotiate on its own terms without bowing to the political blackmail of Cuba’s military dictatorship. Sanctions should not be lifted at the expense of repatriating innocent Cubans back to a brutal dictatorship, and the United States should not negotiate anything until Cuba ceases its manipulative migration tactics — and finally frees political prisoners.
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