U.S. should end special treatment for Cubans, Costa Rican minister says
U.S. should end special treatment for Cubans, Costa Rican minister says
August 26, 2016 3:03 PM
By Franco Ordoñez
fordonez@mcclatchydc.com
WASHINGTON —
The foreign minister of Costa Rica has called on the United States to abandon the Cuban Adjustment Act, saying it’s largely responsible for attracting tens of thousands of Cubans to Latin American countries, which they then use as a springboard to get to the United States.
Foreign Minister Manuel González said this week that Costa Rica and other transit countries – from Ecuador to Mexico – were paying the consequences of the controversial law that all but guaranteed Cubans’ admission to the United States, by permitting those who reach the U.S. to stay there. Now that Cuba and the United States have restored relations, González questions the need for a law constructed in the midst of the Cold War, he said.
“We don’t disregard the humanitarian perspective,” González said during an interview about the thousands of Cubans who’ve passed through Latin America this year as they tried to get from the island to the United States. “But this has cost us millions of dollars – and millions of dollars that we don’t have available. Our people are claiming how is it possible that you don’t invest in your own people and you spend millions of dollars on handling migrants?”
Costa Rica found itself at the center of the controversy earlier this year, when thousands of Cubans were stranded after officials broke up a smuggling ring that was bringing them from Ecuador. Gonzalez said the United States must do more than simply urge the countries to be tougher on enforcing their own immigration laws.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article98109147.html#storylink=cpy
