The United States welcomes Cubans, but discriminates against other nationalities in the wet foot/dry foot policy.
By Crystal Luong
Staff Writer
“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. That started in this tropic port, aboard this Haitian ship.”
This definitely isn’t the SS Minnow and it’s not “Gilligan’s Island” either.
It’s about 206 illegal Haitian immigrants who jumped into the ocean near Key Biscayne, Fla., on Oct. 29, swam to shore and swarmed the highways leading into Miami. Among them were dehydrated, hungry and desperate, men, women and children.
They were running away in fear of their lives in Haiti and in fear of U.S. immigration officials who will most likely return them to where they came from. Along the way, they will be questioned, imprisoned and possibly mistreated, but in the end, only a handful will be allowed to stay and the rest will be denied political asylum.
However, pretend for a moment that they are illegal Cuban immigrants. According to the U.S. “wet foot/dry foot” policy, since they have reached American soil, they are now automatically granted political asylum and they can stay today, tomorrow, next week and forever if they want to.
To recap, the Haitian immigrants will be sent home and the Cubans get to stay. Where lies the justice and rationale for this situation? The primary difference is that only Cubans get protection from the “wet foot/dry foot” policy.
As background on this policy, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the policy into law in 1966. If an illegal Cuban immigrant braves the ocean currents for a roughly two-hour trip and makes it all the way to American land, that illegal immigrant is allowed to stay. If he or she is caught at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard, he or she gets returned to Cuba. If you are an immigrant from Haiti, El Salvador, or any other oppressed, impoverished country, the policy does not apply to you.
The time is ripe for the outdated “wet foot/dry foot” policy to be re-evaluated by Congress. In fact, the time has been ripe since the 1970s when the first floods of Haitian immigrants boarded boats to leave for America, when the Reagan administration decided it would simply be easier to tow Haitian boats back to Haiti in 1981, and when the Elian Gonzalez situation spurred controversy over the policy in 1999.
The main claim against Haitian immigrants is that their reasons for leaving are economic and not political. By definition, asylum is granted on the grounds that an immigrant demonstrates a well-founded fear of persecution based on at least one of five issues: race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
However, Haiti’s economic and political situation warrants a second look at immigration policy.
Haiti, with its population of 8 million, is the poorest country in the Americas. According to the World Bank, Haitians have a total annual income of about $250 per person, and political tension within the country has stalled almost $500 million worth of international aid over the past two years. Four-fifths of the rural population lives in utter poverty. Though Haiti is not a Communist country like Cuba, there has been a continuous struggle between its president and the main opposition political coalition since parliamentary elections in 2000. Hence, even though Haitian immigrants leave the country for economic reasons, politics still play as a key oppressor in their lives.
For the Haitian immigrant that ventures the seas to escape poverty and oppression, the news is U.S. immigration policy has not caught up with the times. Only a glimmer of hope and an aspiration for a better life makes immigration to America an inviting prospect.
Unfortunately, the reality is discrimination exists in the “wet foot/dry foot” policy and in all likelihood the non-Cuban immigrant will be shipped home unless his or her persecution is proven. But since when is it justifiable to reject one group of humans suffering from poverty, hunger and political oppression and embrace another group? Apparently, immigration policy justifies it, or more accurately, just ignores it.
November 14, 2002