More than 500 Cubans arrived in South Florida during the holiday weekend in makeshift, largely motorless boats. Most drifted up in the Florida Keys and at Dry Tortugas National Park, some 70 miles from Key West.
So many migrants crowded into the park that it had to be closed as a destination for tourists, who inadvertently got to see our ruptured immigration system at work firsthand. Many of the migrants floated to Dry Tortugas. Tourists’ videos show them jumping and swimming or running to make it to shore.
They found support from one Cuban exile who shot video of their arrival. “You’re here now; you made it!” he says on the video. And when someone off camera makes a comment, the videographer shoots back: “You don’t know what they have lived through, bro.”
Which raises a good question: What is happening in Cuba to cause this newest mass exodus? These flurries are often a preamble to an onslaught — and the Biden administration best pay close attention.
U.S. authorities are investigating the unusual uptick of Cuban landings, Adam Hoffner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s division chief for Miami operations, told the Miami Herald last weekend. They seem worried, and they should be.
These events are rightly raising questions about what’s behind them and what lies ahead.
Traditionally, and historically, these exoduses from Cuba to Florida, which have existed since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, are good indicators of what is happening on the island.
Most of the migrants are young men, with only a few women and even fewer children among them.
The exoduses are usually fueled by the same components: heightened political persecution by a government trying to hold on to power; dire economic times; and a worsening shortage of essential goods, which creates desperation and a pressure-cooker effect. Since the early days of the Cuban Revolution, the government has consistently relieved that pressure by letting the hungry and the discontented leave the country. Operation Pedro Pan, Camarioca boatlift, the Freedom Flights, Mariel and the 1992 Cuban Rafter Crisis — all were products of these conditions.
There could be another factor driving this movement: political blackmail by the Cuban regime to force the U.S. to loosen sanctions on the island — or continue to face this illegal flood of humanity.
Surely, all those boats couldn’t be leaving Cuba for South Florida if the Cuban Coast Guard wasn’t apparently looking the other way. That’s just common sense, and that’s what Cuba did during the 1992 Cuban rafter crisis, when people were openly building boats in neighborhoods and launching them in the middle of the day.
That’s what Orlando Gutierrez Boronat, head of the Cuban Resistance Assembly in Miami, believes:
“I think Cuba is weaponizing immigration to get Biden to cede on sanctions,” Boronat told the Editorial Board. He makes a good point.
“I think the regime needs to let off the pressure; they are either facilitating the exodus or allowing the migrants to pay authorities to look the other way.” And that bribe money is probably coming from worried relatives in Miami.
Miami Herald reporters covering the exodus have witnessed mostly young Cubans doing anything to leave the horrible economic prospects while the Cuban government offers no solutions and relies on repression. Meanwhile, Cubans are also streaming toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
From Florida-centric experience, we recommend that the Biden administration pay close attention to this growing, unchecked migration from Cuba to Florida.
We fear it might be the beginning of something much bigger and more challenging to hold back.
Mariel Boatlift ring a bell?
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