The U.S. Is Making Things More Dangerous In Central America, Again.

The U.S. Is Making Things More Dangerous In Central America, Again.

 02/09/2016 11:00 pm ET | Updated Feb 10, 2016
By Katie Sizemore

In January, El Salvador's Foreign Minister, Hugo Martínez, greeted Cuban migrants passing through one of his country's airports after having been stranded for three months in Costa Rica on their way to the United States. Martínez attributed the situation to a double standard in U.S. immigration policy, which welcomes some Latin American immigrants with open arms while subjecting others to a seemingly discriminatory system.

Although political relations between the United States and Cuba have recently thawed, immigration policies between the two countries still reflect a rivalry rooted in Cold War-era policies. As part of the strategy to destabilize Castro's regime, the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) of 1966 permits Cubans emigrating from the island, historically fleeing a restrictive economy and a politically repressive police state, to obtain asylum relatively easily in the United States as compared with other immigrants from Latin America. Even in cases of illegal entry, unauthorized Cubans arriving by land are allowed to apply for green cards after one year.

Due in part to these policies, Cubans now account for the third largest Latino population in the country. Two Cuban-Americans are currently competing in this year's presidential election.

The 2014 normalization of relations between Washington and Havana triggered a surge in migration amid fears of changes to the CAA. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released records from 2015 showing a 78 percent increase in Cuban entries to the United States over the previous year. In the last few months of 2015, thousands of Cubans attempted the journey via Ecuador, before continuing toward Central America and Mexico, hoping to eventually pass through the land borders of the southwestern United States. When Nicaragua began denying visas in November 2015, nearly 8,000 migrants were stranded in Costa Rica and Panama. Described as refugees, the group received significant media attention until Central American governments eventually reached a "humanitarian transfer" agreement. By mid-January of this year, the first wave of 180 arrived in the United States.

Compare that to the situation of immigrants from Central America, a region that also has a complex historical relationship with the United States. In the 1980s and 90s, the United States was intimately involved in the civil wars of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Through strong U.S. support and intervention, these became protracted, proxy wars characteristic of the Cold War era, which had lasting and devastating economic, political, and social consequences. Decades of U.S. deportations of gang-affiliated youth and young men followed and significantly contribute to a cycle of violence in the Central American region today.

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