Cuba talks on migration at impasse

Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís is negotiating a “land bridge”, and other potential remedies for the reported 3,000 Cuban migrants stuck in his country who are trying to reach the U.S. Countries with close ties to Cuba are clamping down on migration from the island nation.

During the talks, Cuban delegates expressed “profound concern over the continued politicization of the migration issue”.

Cuba insisted that the “wet foot, dry foot” policy – as well as the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program – are “incoherent within the current bilateral context, (and) hinder the normalization of immigration relations between Cuba and the United States, and create problems for other countries in the region”.

Since 1966, Cubans have enjoyed – if that’s the right word for a grueling experience – unique treatment under USA immigration law, the so-called “wet foot-dry foot” policy.

Cuba asked the United States to hold another round of migration talks in Havana early next year.

The influx of immigrants to Texas also stems from Ecuador loosening requirements for Cubans to have paperwork to stay in the country.

As part of the 1996 migration accord, the United States “committed to discontinue the practice of admitting all Cuban migrants arriving in that territory through irregular ways in order to ensure a legal, safe and orderly migration between both countries”, the Cuban delegation said in a statement.

Cuban migrants wait to board a bus to take them to a shelter, outside an immigration office at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, in Penas Blancas, Costa Rica, Nov. 25, 2015.

USA and Cuban officials are meeting in Washington, as the two countries move forward with efforts to normalize ties.

Police watched on as about 500 people on Friday demanded they be refunded the money they had forked out for the air tickets, with the new Ecuadoran visa restrictions expected to come into effect on Tuesday.

The Ecuadoran consul in Havana, Soraya Encalada, had little sympathy. For decades it had been very hard for any Cuban to travel overseas and even more so for medical personnel.

Ecuador said it changed its policy to protect Cubans making the risky journey north from “unscrupulous people traffickers”.

In Ecuador, Cubans who cross the border become residents under special regulations aimed at giving them refuge from persecution.