martes, 6 de octubre de 2015

Cuba libre shouldn’t mean freebies for Cubans

ANOTHER VIEWPOINT: US-CUBA RELATIONS

Editorial: Cuba libre shouldn't mean freebies for Cubans
Published: Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, October 5, 2015 at 6:12 p.m.

Some Cubans, while perhaps despising the iron-handed Castro brothers and
their communist ways, appear just fine with socialism — American
socialism, that is.

Last week the South Florida Sun-Sentinel produced a shocking report
outlining how some Cuban migrants to the tip of our peninsula finance
their upward mobility back home on the backs of U.S. taxpayers, through
the special status accorded them by our government for the past 50
years. The federal government shells out some $680 million a year — or
more, since the feds don't track some spending all that closely — in
welfare and other benefits to exiled Cubans, and much of that aid is
diverted back to Cuba.

Abuse of our welfare system that would land a U.S. citizen in the pokey
is widely known, flaunted even, in South Florida by those who reportedly
have fled the oppressive Castro regime. But apparently things in the
Castros' dark wonderland are not so awful that many Cubans who end up on
the public dole here don't mind heading back to our island neighbor. In
fact, for some that's kind of the point, as illustrated by the
Sun-Sentinel's astonishing revelations;

For example, the paper recounted how a 75-year-old woman drawing Social
Security payments had returned to Cuba and had relatives in the U.S.
withdraw those funds and send them to her. That went on for at least two
years, with payments totaling $16,000, before the government caught on
and cut off the spigot. One woman told an immigration lawyer in Miami
that her grandmother and two great aunts moved to Florida, were
green-lighted for benefits, and promptly shuttled back to Cuba. The
woman cashed the trio's benefit checks — about $2,400 a month combined —
and sent them half while keeping the rest for herself. The grandmother
used the money to buy a home in Cuba.

Javier Correoso, an aide to former Miami Republican Congressman David
Rivera, recalled for the Sun-Sentinel how some constituents would
complain about a family member not getting welfare benefits. "We'd say,
'Where is he?' They'd say, 'He's in Cuba and isn't coming back for six
months,'" he told the paper. "They're taking benefits from the American
taxpayer to subsidize their life in another country."

We must resist the temptation to paint all Cuban exiles to the U.S. with
the same brush. Over the six decades since Fidel Castro seized control
in Havana, many of his countrymen have fled death, prison, confiscated
assets and stunted economic opportunity to create a better life here —
and their courage, persistence and hard work have, in turn, enriched
both them and their new country.

Yet many of these supposed victims of persecution are playing us for
suckers, banking, literally, on our reflexive anti-communism and our
anti-Castro policies. In 1966 U.S. leaders eager to stick a thumb in
Castro's eye enacted special protections for Cubans fortunate enough to
make it across the Florida Straits. They were not ushered home upon
arrival like other illegals, but rather, as the Sun-Sentinel noted, were
instantly eligible for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and Supplemental
Security Income, or assistance to poor seniors and the disabled young.

Virtually by setting foot on U.S. soil they automatically qualify for
benefits available to U.S. citizens, without having to become citizens,
and can grab aid that almost all other immigrants must wait at least
five years to claim, and which under law is barred to illegal immigrants.

A few points here.

The Sun-Sentinel report reinforces how truly misguided our Cuba policy
has been, and why President Barack Obama correctly normalized relations
and advocates an end to the 55-year-old trade embargo. A monthly check
for $1,000 in freebies from Uncle Sam is a powerful lure for those who
live where the average salary is about $20 a month. If Cubans desire
American dollars to improve their lives, better they earn them from U.S.
companies and tourists who flow to Cuba instead of through taxpayer
handouts received here.

Secondly, this issue stands our immigration policy on its head.
Immigrants, legal or not, have long been demonized as layabouts who seek
to fleece a welfare system that in reality they stood little chance of
cracking. Yet we toss pubic money at Cubans who happen to get a toehold
on American soil, while praising them for their hunger for liberty and
their industriousness. As relations improve and the embargo fades, the
perverse incentive we hold out to them should be flushed by stripping
Cubans of their unique status among immigrants.

Finally, this issue shouldn't be viewed in official quarters as an
indictment of our safety-net system, which exists to help our neighbors
get back on their feet. Contemporary recipients still reeling from the
shock of a global near-depression should not be lumped in with hucksters
who abuse a 50-year-old giveaway. This fraud, taking place in plain
sight and yet impervious to prosecution, is wrong. It must be stopped.

Source: Editorial: Cuba libre shouldn't mean freebies for Cubans |
TheLedger.com - http://www.theledger.com/article/20151006/NEWS/151009734

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