Return to sender - Cayman’s policy on Cuban migrants

Return to sender: Cayman's policy on Cuban migrants
By Editorial Board - May 24, 2016

On a picturesque beach in South Sound, there is an abandoned boat. The
waves pound upon its boards and planks. Scattered on the sand are dozens
of containers, for provisions and unspent fuel. Near the bow of the
makeshift wooden vessel, a simple message is painted in three capital
letters: "USA."

The photograph of the Cuban boat on the front page of Tuesday's
newspaper is an image of a dream deferred. The 43 Cuban migrants who
arrived in Grand Cayman on May 6 will not achieve their goal of escaping
their home country and reaching the United States … at least not this time.

For now, they have been detained by Cayman Islands immigration
officials, who currently have 116 Cuban migrants in custody in various
locations around the island. What follows next is a bureaucratic waiting
game, with the probable result being transportation back to Cuba by air,
and then, perhaps, some day, more attempts to flee.

It is important to understand the tremendous risks that these people
take when they fling their lives upon the mercy of the sea. For the
migrants who head south from Cuba, if and when they finally reach land
in Central America, their journey has just begun. From there they face
an arduous trek of 1,500 miles or more — on foot, by car, on trains …
any way possible — across multiple borders, facing natural elements,
government officials and organized criminals; until they maybe, at last,
attain their Promised Land, of the Free, of Opportunity, etc.

It is just as important to recognize the rewards that — perhaps aren't
actually received — but that these migrants anticipate, and upon which
they have pinned all their dreams, and all their hopes.

The experiences of the disappointed Cuban migrants who wash ashore in
Cayman are very different from what happens to those who do successfully
reach the U.S.

The New York Times recently published a story based on interviews with a
group of a dozen Cubans who made landfall in the Florida Keys. The men
expressed gratitude in two equal measures — for being in America, and
for no longer being in Cuba.

"What you have here is a nest of hope," one migrant said. "What you have
there is a nest of scorpions."

Instead of an immigration detention facility, the Cubans who reached
Florida were taken to a nonprofit assistance center run by the Roman
Catholic Church. They were put up in a motel in the short term. Half
were to be transported to Las Vegas, Nevada, to find work, and the other
half to Austin, Texas. The dreams of these dozen were, in fact, realized.

As has been related in The New York Times and many other news sources,
Cubans are saying that they are more afraid than ever that if they don't
get out of Cuba now, they may never be able to enjoy the special
protections still being extended to Cuban migrants by the U.S. (i.e.,
"wet-foot, dry-foot").

In Cayman, we are witnessing the effects of the nascent U.S.-Cuban thaw,
and the turbulent diplomatic and political currents, in the form of the
swelling numbers of migrants whose journeys end prematurely in our
waters or on our shores.

The agreement Cayman has in place with Cuba, to detain the migrants and
have them returned to the land from which they tried to flee, is far
from ideal. It is, to many Cayman residents, undesirable or even
distasteful. It is also expensive. But, unlike the vast nation of the
U.S., Cayman cannot possibly accommodate even a small portion of the
Cuban migrants who might wish to stay.

Although the conditions in Cuba may be the source of the problem, Cayman
is the recipient. Unfortunately, that doesn't look to change, unless or
until the U.S. alters its policies on accepting Cuban migrants (and
extinguishes their beacon of hope).

The problem of how to handle Cuban migrants may remain one for which
Cayman may not have an adequate solution.

Source: EDITORIAL – Return to sender: Cayman's policy on Cuban migrants
| Cayman Compass -
https://www.caymancompass.com/2016/05/24/editorial-return-to-sender-caymans-policy-on-cuban-migrants/