More temperate climate in Cuba

A year and a half after arriving at the White House, Joe Biden promotes the change of course in relations with Cuba that he had promised in the electoral campaign.

The measures included in the recent State Department statement do not yet have a date, but they reverse some of the 240 sanctions adopted by Donald Trump in areas that cover both personal and economic relationships.

The United States intends to issue 20,000 immigrant visas a year, will facilitate the reunification through regular channels of separated families and will allow “authorized” American travelers to establish contacts with the island.

The announcement also includes the promotion of the Cuban private sector and support for Internet services, applications and electronic commerce platforms in the United States, in addition to raising the maximum of 1.

The fact that the announcement has been criticized by the hard core of the Cuban exile in Miami but also by some relevant Democratic senator expresses the complexity that continues to surround relations between the two countries.

But it is undeniable that the measures will benefit thousands of Cuban families separated by the Straits of Florida.

The objective is to counteract the damage caused by Trump during his presidency, after the resumption of relations promoted by Obama in 2015 at the end of his presidency, some of whose advisors on this matter are also Joe Biden's.

The State Department's announcement comes when Cuba is experiencing a new wave of the exodus that has been depopulating the island in recent months due to the galloping deterioration of living conditions.

Young people and entire families have headed to the United States.

Many of them take advantage of the complicity of Nicaragua, after having suspended the visa requirement for Cubans and thus offering them a first stop in continental America to reach the North American country by land.

It is a dangerous path in which they run into mafias and corrupt officials who mistreat them and extort them financially.

Between October 2021 and April 2022, nearly 115,000 Cubans entered the United States illegally from Mexico.

In just six months, border authorities detained three times as many migrants of that nationality.

Unlike previous exoduses, this time there was no explicit message that the border was opening.

What it does have in common with previous waves is that it is serving to get rid of the Cubans most critical of the regime.

Those who are leaving now are mainly the young people who have grown up with access to the internet and dared to take to the streets.

The historic protests of July 11 demanded changes to their rulers and were repressed and punished with very harsh prison sentences.

The new climate fostered by the State Department's announcement may also make it easier for this migration to find a regulation that avoids today's personal and material costs and stops considering them as bargaining chips.