Social media helps drive historic Cuban exodus to US

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Social media helps drive historic Cuban exodus to US
Nov 23, 12:32 PM EST
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press

PENAS BLANCAS, Costa Rica (AP) -- As summer began to bake the central Cuban city of Sancti Spiritus, Elio Alvarez and Lideisy Hernandez sold their tiny apartment and everything in it for $5,000 and joined the largest migration from their homeland in decades.

Buying two smartphones for $160 apiece on a layover on their way to Ecuador, they plugged themselves into a highly organized, well-funded and increasingly successful homebrewed effort to make human traffickers obsolete by using smartphones and messaging apps on much of the 3,400-mile (5,500-kilometer) overland journey that's become Cubans' main route to the U.S.

Some 45,000 Cubans are expected to move by bus, boat, taxi and on foot from Ecuador and other South and Central American countries to the Texas and California borders this year, afraid that the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba will mean an imminent end to special immigration privileges that date to the opening of the Cold War. With thousands more taking rafts across the Florida Straits, 2015 may witness the biggest outflow of Cubans since the 1980 Mariel boatlift that hauled 125,000 people across the Florida Straits.

The overland exodus has caused a border crisis in Central America, set off tensions in the newly friendly U.S.-Cuban relationship and sparked rising calls in the U.S. to end Cubans' automatic right to legal residency once they touch U.S. soil.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_CUBA_MIGRANTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-11-23-12-32-31

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(My emphasis.)

[geomon666]

1. All thanks to the wet foot dry foot policy.

Not one of Bills' finer moments.

[Wilms]

2. I didn't know that.

Thanks for the tip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_feet,_dry_feet_policy

[tavernier]

3. Sadly the calmer summer seas have given way

to angrier November waters. We don't see as many abandoned rafts as in the past... these days people scrounge and save up the obscene price of an illegal go-fast ride over in the middle of night. (Yeah, I live in the Keys and we all know of people who own these boats that only go out after dark and return before sunrise). But there are still those who dont have the means or the rich relatives, and they are the ones who load their homemade rafts with too many men, women, and children. Desperation is a frightening place.

[ToxMarz]

4. The greatest question is what can Trump do with this

I live in Miami for for 25 years now. The Cuban immigration situation is nothing but special interest pandering and S. Fl Pork. I support assisting all persecuted and endangered refugees. There are not significant numbers of persecuted Cuban refugees anymore, they are literally all economic migrants with an entitled status. And Trumps greatest threats (other than Carson who will is practically in a self induced coma as it is) are the Cuban anchor babies and refugees Rubio and Cruz. I predict he casts his xenophobic other suspicions and welfare takers accusations in their direction, how can they be safe to allow in - they could be terrorists in disguise, they can['t be adequately vetted! And if he hadn't thought of it, his people will hear from other people that they know a guy who said this was a winning strategy

[Judi Lynn]

5. Meeting in El Salvador on Cuban migrants ends in squabbling

Meeting in El Salvador on Cuban migrants ends in squabbling
Associated Press
By MARCOS ALEMAN
24 minutes ago

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — A meeting between Central American officials and their counterparts from Ecuador, Colombia and Cuba broke down in squabbling Tuesday over how to deal with the problem of thousands of Cuban migrants stranded in Costa Rica. The migrants have started using on overland route to reach the United States by traveling to Ecuador, then through Central America and Mexico.

That has sparked tensions in Central America, with Nicaragua on Tuesday accusing its southern neighbor Costa Rica of "unleashing an invasion of illegal Cuban migrants" on it.

"Our governments do not have the resources to deal with this new threat to our national security," the Nicaraguan government said in a statement, suggesting that the wave could facilitate terrorism or migrants from other countries.

The statement also criticized the Cold-War era U.S. policies that allow the Cubans special status as migrants. Nicaragua's leftist government has warm ties with Cuba. .

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/central-american-officials-meet-cuban-migrant-problem-204507580.html