The Debate over the Cuba Embargo and Adjustment Act

The Debate over the Cuba Embargo and Adjustment Act

June 28, 2014

Miguel Fernandez Diaz (Café Fuerte)



HAVANA TIMES — Cuba Poll 2014, a survey conducted by the Florida

International University (FIU), has caused a great media stir and

different factions within the Cuban community are venting their passions

as they set out to ratify or challenge the results.



Some of the most significant upshots include the fact that, in

Miami-Dade county, 52% of Cuban-born residents are against the US

blockade and 86% in favor of maintaining the Cuban Adjustment Act.



These conflicts are of a psychological nature: from the legal

standpoint, lifting the blockade that has been in effect since 1962 and

maintaining the Cuban Adjustment Act (passed in 1966) is impossible. It

is rather curious that even experts and analysts pour forth opinions

without grabbing this particular bull by the horns.



There are two legal foundations that ought to be at the center of the

debate and which are all too often neglected when people speculate about

the Cuban dilemma:



According to the Helms-Burton Act (passed in 1996), the president of the

United States can take measures to suspend the embargo if he believes

that a "Cuban transition government" has come to power and notifies the

pertinent committees of this following consultation with Congress. To

lift the embargo, the Cuban government would have to give way to one

that is "democratically elected" (as Section 204 establishes).



According to the Legal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibilities Reform

Act (1996), the Cuban Adjustment Act would be revoked if and only if the

"democratically elected government" demanded by the Helms-Burton Act

comes to power in Cuba.



The contradictory aspect of the opinion poll is that those surveyed do

not appear to adhere to the political decision that establishes that the

Cuban Adjustment Act presupposes the embargo (and vice-versa), until the

White House determines that Castroism has disappeared in Cuba.



Catch 22



Another far more significant contradiction thus comes to the fore: if

the embargo were contributing to the disappearance of Castroism, the

Cuban Adjustment Act would be helping perpetuate it, driving a constant

exodus of Cubans that, after settling permanently in the United States

(some 384,344 Cubans did so between 2001 and 2012), enter into the

travel and remittances industry. The Havana Consulting Group estimates

that Cuba takes in US $ 2.8 billion in cash through remittances and US $

3.5 billion through in-kind remittances sent from the United States.



And, since a quarter of a million Cuban immigrants acquired US

citizenship between 2001 and 2013, the anti-Castro electorate is being

gradually eroded by voters who, in their overwhelming majority, are

moved, not by the historical mission of establishing a "democratically

elected government in Cuba," but by the personal desire to make their

lives in the United States more comfortable and helping their relatives

back home, even if they're aware that they are also helping the regime

this way.



How will these contradictions within the Cuban community ever be reconciled?



Source: The Debate over the Cuba Embargo and Adjustment Act - Havana

Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=104543