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A conspiracy mounted by the CANF and the right wing
in the United States to destroy the migratory agreements

President Fidel Castro's speech in Matanzas on the theme of illegal emigration, an activity promoted
against Cuba for 40 years, during the event marking the 26th of July anniversary

In Cienfuegos, after devoting a few minutes to the subject of the Pan American Games, I spoke about two fundamental issues: the claim filed against the U.S. government for human damages and the fight against international drug trafficking. Today, here in Matanzas, I must address a matter of paramount importance: the illegal migration from Cuba promoted throughout forty years by the United States.

Before the triumph of the Revolution, a very limited number of visas were granted by the U.S. Embassy for Cuban nationals to migrate to that country. Migrating to the United States was an economic aspiration for hundreds of millions of people around the world, including millions of Europeans attracted by the material resources and standard of living in a nation that emerged intact from World War II as the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world following two major conflicts in less than 25 years, each of which devastated the rest of the world economy.

The legal procedures required for Cubans to migrate to the United States between 1945 and 1959 were lengthy and extremely rigorous. Those who entered the country illegally, in violation of U.S. law, invariably met with deportation or imprisonment. Nobody dared.

With the Cold War in full swing and McCarthyism in command, anyone even slightly suspected of communist or progressive beliefs, for which it was enough to have ever supported the struggle for better wages, or the concept of agrarian reform, would never be granted a visa.

Everything changed with the triumph of the Revolution on January 1, 1959. The first to leave the country illegally were the murderers, henchmen, torturers, embezzlers and thieves of the overthrown Batista dictatorship, who found a luxurious refuge in the United States. Since then, entry into the United States with no obstacles of any kind has become the norm for all those who illegally leave Cuba under any pretext. As soon as it became clear that a genuine revolution had taken place in Cuba and the first revolutionary laws were proclaimed, a mass exodus began of the upper class sectors. The mansions they abandoned in Vedado, Miramar, Tarará and other upscale neighborhoods in Havana were occupied by the revolutionary state. Tens of thousands of young peasant women from the countryside and, after the 1961 literacy campaign, hundreds of thousands of scholarship students from humble backgrounds went through these homes turned into student residences during the first ten years of the Revolution. Thus, education became widely accessible to the children of all of Cuban families, until the Revolution was able to build thousands of new boarding and semi-boarding schools, special schools and day-care centers.

It must be said that not a single one of the families of the upper classes, while they still remained in the country, had their homes taken away from them, nor the money they had deposited in the banks, which sometimes were millions.

The Revolution never hindered legal exits from the country to the United States or anywhere else in the world. Successive U.S. administrations, on the other hand, have always encouraged illegal exits. Without exception, visas ceased to be a necessary requirement for being received in the United States, regardless even of criminal records or crimes committed in the past; not a single illegal migrant was ever sent back to the country. All they needed to do was declare that they were against the Revolution, or against socialism, or communism, or that they were victims of political persecution. The category of migrant also disappeared from the vocabulary used for Cuban nationals. From that moment on, all Cubans living in any other country in the world are called exiles. Oddly enough, they are exiles or victims of political persecution who almost without exception can travel to Cuba as often as they like.

Facilities for legal migration from Cuba were used to such extent and even abused during the first years of the Revolution, that, for example, over 14,000 Cuban children were virtually kidnapped by the United States when counterrevolutionary groups, organized from the very beginning by U.S. intelligence agencies, surreptitiously published and distributed false government bills to spread the criminal lie that children's custody would be taken away from the parents. Panic was sown among many middle-class families, who were frightened into sending their children away secretly, without visas of any kind, on the same legal and regular airlines that flew directly to the United States. These children separated from their parents were met there and sent to orphanages or even detention centers for minors. It is imperative to recall these events.

One fatal day, in late 1962, the U.S. government abruptly suspended all regularly scheduled flights and legal departures from Cuba. Hundreds of thousands of people lost all links to their relatives living in the United States, including parents who had sent their children to the U.S. because of the fears previously mentioned. The only remaining possibility was illegal migration, which was encouraged by all means possible as part of the dirty propaganda against the Revolution and socialism. This policy gave rise to successive migration crises.

In February of 1963, the Kennedy administration provided a powerful additional incentive for illegal migration: it announced that Cubans who arrived in the United States directly from the island would be received as refugees, while those who sought to enter from third countries would be considered aliens and remain subject to all U.S. immigration restrictions.

The Revolution's first response to this arbitrary and harmful policy was to open the port of Camarioca, Matanzas, on September 28, 1965, so that any Cuban family living in the United States could use their own or rented boats to pick up relatives in Cuba, who would be allowed to migrate with the prior authorization of the Cuban authorities. Disregarding the orders of the U.S. authorities, close to 1000 boats from the United States gathered in this small port.

Despite the fact that there were no diplomatic relations or interests sections at that time, negotiations were held between the two countries, and a memorandum of agreement reached on December 6 of that year established an airlift between Varadero and the United States, which operated from January, 1966, until April, 1973. With the exception of a number of skilled personnel considered indispensable - while substitutes for them were being trained - and of citizens who were or had recently been in active service in the Armed Forces or in institutions for internal order, all those who expressed the desire to migrate were authorized to do so. In this orderly and safe manner, close to 260,000 people were able to fulfil their wish to migrate to the United States, and tens of thousands of families were reunited.

In spite of this, the United States continued to strongly encourage illegal exits, which kept on taking place, since those traveling by way of the airlift required a visa, and not everyone received one. The U.S. authorities were selective, and attempted to take away from Cuba, as many as possible, doctors, nurses, professors, teachers and other university-educated professionals or middle-level technicians. In the United States, these individuals were paid salaries according to their qualifications; the salaries paid there, in the most developed and wealthiest country in the world, were incomparably higher than those paid in a neocolony that had only recently gained its independence, and which was at the same time underdeveloped, poor and strongly blockaded by the powerful nation with which it had maintained its most important economic, financial and commercial ties since the turn of the century. Yet our country steadfastly resisted this brain drain, and through a colossal educational effort, took on the task of training new professionals and technicians, and multiplying many times over the number of those who had been taken away from it.

In addition to the legislation passed by Kennedy in 1963 which so greatly encouraged illegal migration, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives gathered in Congress approved the so-called Cuban Adjustment Act, signed by President Johnson on November 2, 1966, which established special and exclusive status for Cubans, stipulating that "the status of any alien who is a native or citizen of Cuba and who has been inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States subsequent to January 1, 1959 and has been physically present in the United States for at least two years, may be adjusted by the Attorney General, in his discretion and under such regulations as he may prescribe, to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence."
In its zeal to destabilize and destroy the Cuban Revolution, this extremely vague and confusing law, with a few subsequent modifications, was the legal basis for the automatic right to permanent resident status a year after entering U.S. territory, granted to all Cuban nationals who leave the country illegally the minute they set foot in the United States. A right that has never been extended to citizens of any other country in the world. Had the same measure been applied to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, today there would be many more Latin American and Caribbean citizens in the United States than people actually born there. Let us not even think about what would have happened had this rule been applied to the rest of the world.

Under such circumstances, after the airlift was suspended, it was inevitable that sooner or later another migration crisis would appear. This is what happened in 1980, when a situation similar to that in Camarioca was created, but this time in the port of Mariel.

It was during President Ronald Reagan's administration, on December 14, 1984, that the second migratory agreement was concluded after negotiations between representatives of the governments of Cuba and the United States. According to the text of the communiqué issued, these negotiations ended with the adoption of "agreements for the normalization of inmigration procedures between the two countries and to put an end to the abnormal situation which has existed since 1980." Its essential provisions were the following:

"The United States will resume issuance of preference immigrant visas to Cuban nationals residing in Cuba up to the number of 20,000 each year, in particular to close family relatives of United States citizens and of Cuban permanent residents in the United States.

"The United States side expressed its willingness to put implement - with the cooperation of the Cuban authorities - all necessary measures to ensure that Cuban nationals residing in Cuba wishing to migrate to the United States and who qualify under United States law to receive immigrant visas, may enter the United States, taking maximum advantage of the number of up to 20,000 immigrants per year."

Pay close attention to the next paragraph of the communiqué.

"For its part, the United States will continue granting immigrant visas to residents of Cuba who are parents, spouses and unmarried children under 21 years of age of United States citizens. These inmigrants will not be counted against the annual limit indicated above."

In other words, it was specified that the figure of 20,000 could be amply surpassed with the category of relatives of those who were already U.S. citizens.

"Cuba will accept the return of those Cuban nationals who came to the United States in 1980 via the port of Mariel and who have been declared ineligible to enter the United States legally. The number of such persons is 2,746 and their names appear on an approved list. [...] The returns will be effected at a rate of 100 each calendar month."

The agreement further included 3,000 visas each year for "those persons who, having been released after serving sentences for acts which Cuban penal legislation defines as `Offenses against the Security of the State', wish to reside permanently in the United States."

The latter were included as the result of a demand made by Cuba, based on the consideration that these individuals had acted following instructions from the United States, which therefore had a moral obligation to grant them visas, since their counterrevolutionary activities at the service of a foreign power caused them to be shunned in our country and rendered difficult their reinsertment into society.

The total number of Cuban migrants seemed sufficient. Although no time limit was established, over 300,000 people could have migrated in a legal and safe manner over the course of ten years, taking into account all three categories.

What happened with this agreement, which was undoubtedly positive and provided an unquestionably reasonable and just way to deal with the problem?

With regard to the quota of up to 20,000, during 1985 - the first year that the agreement was in effect - only 1,227 visas were granted for legal migration. During the years 1986 and 1987, there was not a single departure. The agreement had been suspended as a consequence of Cuba's reaction to an unnecessary and eminently hostile measure adopted by the Reagan administration, namely, the creation of an official subversive radio station which they named, in a deliberately hurtful and insulting manner, after José Martí, the apostle of our independence and the most profound political thinker of our America, the prophet and visionary who was the first to denounce the United States' expansionist policy in this hemisphere at the expense of the Latin American peoples. Following this suspension, exchanges and negotiations between representatives of the two countries were resumed. We did not want this provocation to result in a definitive suspension of an agreement which, if accurately implemented, could solve the migration problem. It came into effect again during the last year of the Reagan administration.

In 1988, the quota of 20,000 visas for that year was not fulfilled either; only 3,472 visas were granted, that is, 5.8 times fewer than the number agreed upon;

in 1989, 1,631 (12.3 times fewer);

in 1990, the number dropped to 1,098 (18.2 times fewer);

in 1991, it increased slightly to 1,376 (14.6 times fewer);

in 1992, it dropped below 1000, with only 910 visas granted, 22 times fewer than the number agreed upon;

in 1993, the total was also under 1000, namely, 964, x times fewer.

And in 1994, by the end of July of that year, the number of visas granted totaled up to 544 in seven months, at the ridiculous rate of 77 per month.

The commitment to grant an average of 1,667 visas a month had been reduced to this.

None of the last three U.S. administrations in office between 1984 and 1994 had fulfilled the agreement. Notice that under the Clinton administration, which was also legally bound to comply with the agreement signed by the United States on December 14, 1984, the number of visas granted never surpassed 1000:

964 in 1993;

544 in 1994.

II PART