Post COVID Cuban migration into the United States.

Building up on the previous article (link here), the United States is in the middle of a massive surge in Cuban immigration. This wave is just as complicated as the previous ones, and thus to understand it, it is necessary to talk about the years leading up to the COVID pandemic.

Fiscal Year 2020

After wet-foot, dry-foot was eliminated during the Obama administration, interceptions of Cubans at sea completely disappear by the first few months of the Trump administration. Cubans looking to migrate into the United States would instead find various routes through Latin America, mainly flying to countries in South America and making the trajectory through central Americana and Mexico. This route was much more expensive for the regular population to pull-off, while becoming a common route for Cuban doctors who were sent to south America by the Cuban dictatorship. Here is a comment by a Cuban migrant who was part of a caravan – of around 600 Cubans - that got stuck in Panama while on their way to the U.S. southern border in 2019:

“he said he was paying for the trip to the border with his savings from a job in Uruguay, where he arrived in 2017 and left later in hope of joining relatives in Miami. The Cubans on the caravan organized themselves through social media to protect themselves from criminals along the way to the U.S. border, he added.”

This route hit its peak in October of 2019, with 1843 Cuban encounters at the U.S. southern border. The year 2019 would close with an additional 2,131 Cuban encounters at the U.S. southern border during November and December.

The first 5 months of 2020 would see a massive decrease in Cuban migration, with only 164 Cubans arriving at the southern border in April. Between January and May of 2020, only 2,382 Cubans were encountered at the southern border. The number of monthly Cubans encounters at the southern border for the rest of 2020 would get back to around the same levels as of the end of 2019. Fiscal year 2020 would end with a grand total of 13,410 Cuban encounters at the southern border.

Fiscal Year 2021

January would see the implementation of what the Cuban regime calls “La Tarea de Ordenamineto”. This would be a policy attempting to fix the currency situation in Cuba, which at the time had 3 running currencies. The policy would attempt at unifying two currencies, the CUC, and the CUP (here are some links to read more in-depth about it) To make the story short, the policy completely ignored economic principles and ran contrary to them. As it was expected by anyone with basic knowledge of economics – as well as forecasted by economists – the policy created skyrocketing inflation. The government responded to this by increasing everyone’s salaries and increasing the price for goods and services, for example: increasing energy prices by 400%. (I don’t think I need to explain how this only strengthens all inflationary pressures on the CUP (Cuban Peso)). The inflation created by the horrendously erroneous implementation of the Tarea de Ordenamiento would be on top of Global inflation. This combination would extensively worsen the economic health of Cubans across the island. As the effects of the Tarea de Ordenamiento were beginning to be felt, Cuban migration into the U.S. increased. In February of 2021, 3848 Cubans would be encountered at the southern border, more than doubling the January 2021 numbers. March of 2021 would see another sharp increase in Cuban encounters at the southern border, with 5700 of them. In the first 6 months of 2021, there would be around 20,471 Cuban encounters at the southern border, 7000 more than the totality of Cuban encounters for Fiscal Year 2020.

July would be another important month. On July 11th, 2021, the Cuban people would engage in spontaneous peaceful protests across the island. The people were (and still are) fed up with the failed economic state of the island as well as with the dictatorship. July 11th, 2021 is by far and away the biggest show of discontent by the Cuban people in the History of the Castro-PCC dictatorship. The protestors had caught the dictatorship by surprise. The regime would respond by quickly deploy its armed forces - as well as its loyal mob – to quell the protests. Protestors were subjected to a horrendous wave of abuse by the military and PCC loyalists, with Cuban dictator Miguel Diaz Canel openly saying that protestors should be met in the streets with force, this was the infamous “the order was given” speech.

This event is extremely important, and it has had a major impact on Cuban politics. Between July and October of 2021, there would be 18,761 Cuban encounters at the southern border, marking yet another increase in monthly Cuban migration into the United States. Fiscal Year 2021 would have 38,674 Cuban encounters at the southern Border, almost 3 times bigger than Fiscal Year 2020.

Fiscal Year 2022

While the Tarea de Ordenamiento policy and the July 11th protests had slight increases in Cuban migration into the U.S., it would an announcement in November 2021 that would really bring Cuban encounters at the border to levels never seen before. In November 2021, Nicaragua would end its Visa requirements for Cubans, thus Cubans could now visit Nicaragua Visa-free. While before COVID Cubans had to go through the excessive hassle to get flights to South America (there were a lot of restrictions as to who could or could not go) and begin their journey from there, now all ANYONE needed was a flight ticket to Nicaragua and make the shorter journey to the U.S.-Mexico border. It has become common knowledge in the Cuban community that someone in Cuba would probably need somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 to “hacer la travesía” (make the journey). People, suffocating under the economic and political boot of the communist regime, would sell off everything they had, get a flight ticket to Nicaragua, and begin the journey through central America. The fastest way for people to gather up $10,000 was to sell their house with everything inside and/or have a family member outside of Cuba who could finance part of it. This strategy proved to be very successful. In November of 2021, 6605 Cubans would arrive at the U.S. southern border, that number would increase to 16,557 in February of 2022, and then 34,839 in April of that same year. A grand total of 220,908 Cubans would be encountered at the border in Fiscal Year 2022, almost 6 times more than Fiscal Year 2021.

Fiscal Year 2022 would have an increase of 644,258 encounters at the southern border. Cubans would account for 28.2% of that increase. When we combine the increase in Cuban and Venezuelan encounters at the border, we can see that those two communities account for 45.5% (essentially half) of the total increase between FY2021 and FY2022.

This migration wave is not only different on the way Cubans arrive at the U.S., but it’s also different when we look at where they settle, with Houston quickly becoming the city of choice by many Cubans. According to the Houston Chronicle, by August 19th:

“Roughly 9,000 of these Cubans have headed to Houston this fiscal year, making the city an emerging destination for Cuban arrivals, according to data from the five Houston-area refugee resettlement agencies that offer federal assistance to Cubans. This number doesn’t take into account any Cubans who might have moved to Houston from other parts of the country.”

References

Cuba. Worldometer. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/cuba/

Mario J. Penton / El Nuevo Herald (TNS). (2019, February 15). A new 'freedom caravan' of primarily Cuban migrants is trying to reach US. Albuquerque Journal. Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://www.abqjournal.com/1281280/a-new-freedom-caravan-of-primarily-cuban-migrants-is-trying-to-reach-us.html

Mesoamerica. WHAP Wiki [licensed for non-commercial use only] / Mesoamerica. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2022, from http://whap.pbworks.com/w/page/133570674/Mesoamerica

Morales, E. (2022, October 7). Díaz-Canel y Alejandro Gil Se Hunden Al Ritmo de la inflación. DIARIO DE CUBA. Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://diariodecuba.com/economia/1665140383_42698.html

Nationwide encounters. U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters

Trovall, E. (2022, August 19). Cubans arrive at border in record numbers, with thousands headed to Houston, an emerging destination. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/immigration/article/Cubans-arrive-at-border-in-record-numbers-with-17383080.php