Marco Rubio was born on May 28, 1971 in Miami, Florida. He was elected to the United States Senate in November 2010. He previously served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. Senator Rubio’s parents were born in Cuba.
Senator Marco Rubio from Florida and Republican presidential candidate will introduce a bill in the Senate on January 12, 2016 to end automatic federal benefits for Cuban immigrants. On January 7, Senator Rubio said the following during a campaign event in Bedford, New Hampshire: “We have people living in Cuba off Social Security benefits. They never worked here. This is an outrageous abuse, and I have a law that we are going to introduce this week that shots down this issue. It’s wrong.”
Senator Marco Rubio’s bill would be a Senate companion to legislation filed recently in the House of Representatives by Carlos Curbelo, a Miami-Dade Republican Congressman. Representative Curbelo’s bill would stop automatic federal benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid for Cubans, who under existing law are treated as refugees even without refugee status.
Senator Marco Rubio said in New Hampshire that the Cuban Adjustment Act should be reviewed, a position that he has advocated in the past. This writer contacted a top presidential campaign official of Senator Rubio and shared his previous articles denouncing the abuses perpetrated by recent Cuban immigrants. He also wrote a letter which was given to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump requesting that the Cuban Adjustment Act be abolished due to his many abuses and fraud.
Frances Robles wrote an article entitled “Cubans, Fearing Loss of Favored Status in U.S., Rush to Make an Arduous Journey” which was published in the New York Times on January 9, 2016. She pointed out that nearly 11,000 Cuban immigrants who were stranded because of a political impasse in Central America will soon be back on the trail, heading to the United States in “an exodus that some officials have likened to a stampede.”
Almost all Cuban immigrants are heading to Miami, Florida. Already several thousand arrived during 2015. The mayors of several cities in Miami-Dade County have complained vigorously that the federal government has not appropriated funds to deal with this massive migration. Cities in South Florida and the social agencies have funds to handle such a large influx of Cubans. The Miami-Dade County Public Schools is increasingly and enrolling many children from recent Cuban arrivals without additional funds from the federal government.
Republican U.S. Representatives Carlos Curbelo, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from South Florida and former Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart appeared in this picture when they complained about establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba.
On January 7, 2016, Republican U.S. Representatives Carlos Curbelo, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from South Florida sent their third letter to President Barack Obama requesting that President Obama prepare a plan to accommodate the massive influx of Cuban immigrants to South Florida. All of them blame Obama’s normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba for the increase in thousands migrants from the Island arriving in South Florida.
The letter from the three members of House of Representatives from South Florida stated the following: “Since our previous letters, we have been in contact with Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez, and Doral mayor Luigi Boria about their concerns regarding the growing strain on local governments and services in South Florida.” They explained that the city of Miami has stated its homeless shelters cannot receive any more Cuban immigrants and that nonprofits such as Catholic Charities, Church World Services and the International Rescue Committee “do not have funds necessary to assist these new refugees because they are already overwhelmed by the surge of Cuban nationals that have recently arrived in the United States.”
The Obama administration has not answered these three letters requesting funding for from South Florida. As usual, Obama refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
Cubans are crossing Costa Rica on the way to the United States.
While U.S. politicians debate whether to accept Syrian refugees and complain the influx of Central Americans who make their way illegally into the United States, “the border is about to be crashed in the coming weeks by another wave of newcomers.” Robles pointed out that this latest wave of Cuban migration stems from a number of changes enacted by Cuba’s communist government in recent years. People are allowed to sell their cars and real estate, a situation that suddenly permitted many in the Island to pay smugglers to get them to the United States.
The Cuban regime also began allowing its citizens to obtain passports and leave the country more freely, unleashing a mass exodus to the United States. Rumors quickly circulated in Cuba that with embassies reopening, the United States would soon eliminate the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. This law gives Cubans who make it to the United States financial assistance and after a year and one day they are able to become U.S. permanent residents.
Robles explained that tens of thousands of Cubans have used the profits of their home and car sales to pay for a treacherous 5,000-mile journey by plane, bus, boat and foot. Most Cubans have begun by flying to Ecuador, which did not used to require a travel visa. Then they have moved on to Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico in hopes of reaching the United States southern border. This route allows Cubans to bypass the dangerous trip through the Florida Straits, a crossing that cost many Cubans their lives and where, because of an American policy known as “wet foot, dry foot,” they would be turned back if caught by the Coast Guard.
Approximately 40,000 Cubans made it to the southwest border of the United States or crossed the Straits of Florida in the 2015 fiscal year, a very large increase from the year before, according to the Customs and Border Protection agency. The Obama administration is not taking any measures to deal with this very large influx which is impacting financially South Florida.
Robles wrote that the government of Costa Rica warned its neighbors last year that a tidal wave was building. “Many countries turned to look the other way, as though they were ghosts — they knew they were there, but paid no attention,” said Costa Rica’s Foreign Minister, Manuel González. In November 2015, Costa Rica broke up a smuggling network that had been ferrying migrants through the country.
Robles stated the following: “Without the guides to lead the way, migrants who had been quietly slipping past border crossings suddenly became conspicuous. Thousands of them. Costa Rica gave them transit visas and sent them on their way, but Nicaragua — a longstanding ally of Cuba — balked, refusing to let them pass. Cubans started to pile up at the Nicaraguan border. In November, throngs of them pushed their way past the border agents. They were repelled by Nicaraguan soldiers with tear gas and swift beatings. “As much as we lived under a regime, nothing like that had ever happened to us before,” Ms. López, 22, said. “Tear gas? Bullets? Some of us had been beaten by the police before, but not like that.”
Robles explained that armed criminals preyed upon Cubans on the road, especially those who had not thought to first wire their life savings to relatives in the United States. “I would tell anyone not to take this trip,” said Pedro Enrique Duarte, a 48-year-old accountant who was attacked in Colombia and rescued by a local family. “You spend the whole time straddling between life and death.” Many Cubans were financially wiped out.
Robles wrote that in late December 2015, Costa Rica and the other Central American nations agreed on a plan to expedite the departure of Cubans. On January 12, 2016, a group of 180 Cubans are scheduled to fly over Nicaragua to El Salvador, which had not been part of the migrant trail. From there, they will take a bus to Guatemala, then another to southern Mexico. Two flights will leave each day, with the expectation that it will take three weeks to evacuate the approximately 8,000 Cubans who are in Costa Rica. The hope is to develop a similar plan for the 3,000 Cubans in Panama as well.
The plan of Central American nations stipulated that Cubans will pay $555 for the charter flight, the bus and food arranged by a travel agency. Once in Mexico, the Cubans will be on their own to reach the United States southern border.
The Central American nations have stated that the deal was a one-time offer. To stop the influx of Cuban migrants, Ecuador started requiring visas in December 2015. Costa Rica stated it will deport any additional Cubans caught in its territory. The Castro brothers created this crisis by requesting their ally Nicaraguan Marxist dictator Daniel Ortega to shut the border of his country with Costa Rica. In the past, the bloody the Cuban regime took advantage of unregulated massive influx of desperate Cubans into the United States to bring spies, criminals and terrorists. Most likely among the decent Cuban immigrants in Central America the Cuban oppressive regime has infiltrated undesirable individuals who want to enter the United States to commit crimes or to spy.
During the Mariel 1980 boat influx, the Cuban regime emptied its jails to send common criminals and emptied its insane asylum to send mentally disturbed individuals to the United States. Cuban criminals and crazies sent by Fidel Castro assassinated and injured many people in the United States. This was an act of war that contributed to President Jimmy Carter losing his reelection in 1980 since he was unable to stop it. It must be noted however, that the vast majority of the Cubans that came during the Mariel influx were law-abiding and have done very well in the United States.
The Cubans who had entered the United States prior to 1980 were very law-abiding and had an extremely low criminal rate, even lower that white Americans. Fidel Castro wanted to change that and to give Cubans the United States a bad name.
The Cuban Adjustment Act needs to be abolished
The Cuban Adjustment Act, Public Law 89-732, was passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson on November 2, 1966. Under the provision of this law any native or citizen of Cuba who has been admitted or paroled into the United States after January 1, 1959 and has been physically present for at least one year and one day in this nation becomes a United States permanent resident.
The Cuban Adjustment Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966.
The original Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 allowed Cubans to become permanent residents if they had been present in the United States for at least two years. The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1976 (P.L. 94-571) reduced this time to one year. Caps on immigration do not apply and it is not necessary that the applicant use a family-based or employment-based immigrant visa petition.
Two other immigration rules were also waived. Unlike other immigrants, Cubans are not required to enter the United States at a port-of-entry. Second, being a public charge does not make a Cuban ineligible to become a permanent resident. These privileges are not given to other immigrant groups. It has also been discovered that people who have never set foot in Cuba, but claim to have a parent of Cuban descent, can immigrate to America.
Cubans in Cuba can legally migrate to the United States through various migration programs that include immigrant visa issuance, refugee admission, the diversity lottery, and the Special Cuban Migration Program (SCMP), otherwise known as the Cuban lottery. There are thousands of visas available annually to eligible applicants from around the world. The Special Cuban Migration Program, or “Cuban lottery”, is open to all adult Cubans between the ages of 18 and 55 years of age who are resident in Cuba regardless of whether they qualify for American immigrant visa or refugee programs. The lottery provides an avenue of legal migration to a diverse group of Cubans, including those who might not have close relatives in the United States.
The Cuban Adjustment Act has outlived its usefulness and need. It has been documented by investigative journalists that an enormous amount of crimes has been committed by Cuban immigrants who come here not to flee persecution, but to steal from retailers, insurance companies, banks and credit card companies, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Before many of these Cuban criminals (many of them sent by the intelligence services of Communist Cuba) are indicted and prosecuted, they returned back to Cuba as heroes. The money stolen in the United States goes back to Cuba to enrich the Castro regime.
Other Cubans over 65 years of age come to the Unites States to seek the generous benefits provided by our nation. Without having worked a day in our country they are given a Social Security pension of $733 a month, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and assisted rent, among other benefits. Some Cubans who are less than 65 apply for disability due to suffering “psychological illness” and due to the lax rules of the Social Security administration by which they obtain disability benefits.
The Sun Sentinel newspaper did a series of articles documenting the many crimes and abuses of recently arrived immigrants from Cuba. They discovered that seniors from Cuba, who after becoming U.S. permanent residents, return to live in Cuba, while relatives in the United States send their pensions to them to enjoy in the island. These seniors also collect their small Cuban pensions. Some of them also collect pensions from the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Cuba well as U.S. pensions.
Cuban General Reinaldo Peguero Pernas entered the United States from its southern border and moved with his daughter in Hialeah, Florida. This Cuban oppressor is receiving financial aid and a pension of $733, in spite of the fact that he has never worked one day in the United States.
This is an outrage since this individual should be deported immediately back to Cuba. The Cubans that he persecuted and who live in the United States are paying taxes to provide Social Security benefits, food stamps, Medicaid and other benefit to this thug.
Many Cubans in Cuba are aware just of how easy is to commit fraud in our nation. These individuals have cost U.S. taxpayers over $2 billion in recent years. It is grossly unfair that American-born citizens and decent naturalized Cubans who have worked for many years in our nation receive Social Security pensions between $500 and $600 a month.
Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Carlos Curbelo are both Americans of Cuban descent. Both of them are filing a bill to end automatic federal benefits for Cuban immigrants. While there bill does not eliminate the Cuban Adjustment Act, it would reduce significantly the tens of millions given to individuals from Cuba who are not political refugees. It would also reduce those that come from Cuba just to be able to receive financial benefits in our country. It is also time for Republican presidential candidates to ask Congress to end the Cuban Adjustment Act.
It is time to think about treating Cuban immigrants the way we treat immigrants from other nations. Almost all Cubans, who are now fleeing their country’s horrible economic conditions, come to the United States not to flee persecution but to seek greater opportunities here. That is the hope of tens of millions immigrants from around the world who want to come to America. Fairness should be the goal of immigration.
Besides Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Carlos Curbelo, other Florida’s Cuban-American members of Congress have begun to speak out against the 1966 law. They do not advocate ending it. Rather, they wish to limit its application to genuine political refugees. Genuine refugees comply because they fear persecution if they return to their homeland. If you are truly a political refugee, you do not return to the country where you were persecuted.
Unfortunately, tens of thousands of Cubans, who took unfair advantage of the Cuban Adjustment Act, return to Cuba frequently, after one year and one day, once they become U.S. permanent residents. Some travel to Cuba several times a year. Yet, Cubans in Cuba do not need to rely on the Cuban Adjustment Act to move to the United States. They may officially qualify for some of the 20,000 annual Cuban entry slots or for general refugee-immigration slots.
Those Cuban who are opponents of the tyrannical regime or who had been political prisoners and seek refuge from persecution qualify for admission independently from of the Cuban Adjustment Act. Their refugee rights should be protected. These brave patriotic Cuban freedom fighters can apply for U.S. resettlement through the United States embassy in Havana and our nation should welcome them with open arms.
Conclusion
Many Cubans in Cuba are aware just of how easy is to commit fraud in our nation. These individuals have cost U.S. taxpayers over $2 billion in recent years. These abuses to Cuban Adjustment Act must end immediately! Crimes and fraud must also be prosecuted vigorously!
Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Carlos Curbelo should be commended for introducing a bill to end automatic federal benefits for Cuban immigrants. Hopefully, this bill will be approved soon by both houses of Congress and sent to the president for approval. However, President Obama may veto this bill since he is the architect of the destruction of the United States.
