Congressional Democrats want to restart a federal program that reunites Cuban families in the United States, years after application processing for the program ceased after U.S. government personnel in Havana became mysteriously ill.
A bill filed Wednesday by Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and New Jersey Rep. Albio Sires would resume the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program, which allows eligible Cuban Americans to bring loved ones to the United States while they wait for their visas.
“The Cuban people live under a brutal authoritarian regime, with little control over their fate,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement, “so we must do all we can to offer them a path to expeditiously and legally immigrate to the United States.”
The Democrats’ initiative comes as the U.S. is expected to announce as soon as Thursday an increase in consular staffing at its embassy in Havana to help address the years-long visa backlog. Last month, a top U.S. State Department official told Congress that the plan involved sending temporary consular officers to boost visa processing.
Currently, there is a backlog of about 22,000 applications for the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program. While U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services says the program is still in effect, visa processing has been suspended for years. The Trump administration reduced embassy personnel and stripped down its consular services in 2017, following mysterious health problems among staff. The illness, dubbed the “Havana Syndrome,” can cause dizziness, ringing in the ears and cognitive impairment and is being studied by the Biden administration. Then, in December 2018, U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services permanently closed its field office in Havana.
Cubans have to go to the U.S. Embassy in Guyana for visa interviews and other application processing services. The trip from Cuba is expensive for many island residents and the COVID-19 pandemic has presented additional challenges to leaving the island.
What does the bill say?
The four-page bill, titled the “Cuban Family Reunification Parole Act of 2022,” instructs the secretaries of Homeland Security and the State Department to start processing applications for the family parole program and to assign staff to the U.S Embassy in Havana from their agencies. It does not have a Senate companion bill at this point.
The agency heads shall ensure that “applications for parole under the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program that were filed before the date of the enactment of this Act have started being adjudicated not more than six months after the date” the law is enacted, the bill says.
Paroles granted under the program, according to the legislation, shall be valid for “an initial period of at least two years.” That time frame would allow many of the Cubans coming with the parole to obtain permanent residency, thanks to the Cuban Adjustment Act still in place.
“As the daughter of a maid and a janitor who sacrificed every day to make sure their children would have a better life, I believe that nothing is more important than family. I am proud to strongly support restoring the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program,” said Florida Rep. Val Demings, who co-sponsored the legislation. Other Florida Democrats, including Reps. Charlie Crist, Al Lawson, Stephanie Murphy, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Kathy Castor, also backed the bill.
“I fully understand the need for strong security,” Demings added, “but we cannot use security as an excuse to leave people victimized by the criminal Cuban regime.”
The bill also instructs the secretaries of Homeland Security and State to take any necessary actions to ensure the safety of their personnel and so staff can dedicate resources at least one business a day per week to the family parole program.
In recent years, there have been other efforts from the Florida congressional delegation to speed up consular services for Cuban nationals and put the family parole program back in motion. Miami residents have also protested in support of the program’s reinstatement.
Former Democratic Miami Reps. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Donna Shalala introduced a bill in 2019 that mandated the U.S. government to reinstate the program and to also conduct visa interviews over video conferences.
Republican Reps. María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Gimenez and Mario Díaz-Balart of Florida, along with Democratic Rep. Murphy, introduced their own version of a bill to bring the program back in April 2021. Their bill would have resumed in-person interviews and other services for the program in the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, in southeastern Cuba.
Díaz-Balart told the Miami Herald in a statement that “the only way to get this done is through a bipartisan bill.”
“This bill must uphold and promote the safety of American personnel and prohibit human rights abusers from benefiting from the parole program,” said Díaz-Balart. “In April 2021, Representatives Stephanie Murphy, Maria Elvira Salazar, Carlos A. Gimenez and I introduced a bipartisan bill that reinstates this program while addressing these serious concerns.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Salazar said that while the new bill had not been shared with her office, she applauded any efforts to propel the family reunification program forward. Like Díaz-Balart, she emphasized a policy that involved a bipartisan solution and guaranteed the safety of U.S. diplomats.
“I hope my colleagues will come to the table and negotiate with their Republican counterparts,” she said.
The trio of Florida Republicans asked President Joe Biden last month to restart consular services in Cuba, prioritizing human rights and pro-democracy activists and people with urgent medical or humanitarian needs. In the letter, they also asked for the parole program’s application processing to be resumed and warned of safety issues, including Havana syndrome, that embassy staffers could face in Cuba.
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