Attempts to Repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act: A Public Policy Analysis

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.14.1.0013
• Published date: 05 July 2022
• Date: 05 July 2022
• Pages: 13-35
• Author: Rodney A. González Maestrey
• Subject Matter: Cuban Adjustment Act,public policy,political process,immigration policy,US Cuba policy,Cuban-Americans

IJCS Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals www.plutojournals.com/ijcs/

ACADEMIC ARTICLE

ATTEMPTS TO REPEAL THE CUBAN

ADJUSTMENT ACT: A PUBLIC POLICY

ANALYSIS

Rodney A. González Maestrey

University of Havana1

Abstract

Historical struggles to maintain, reform or repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act in the

US Congress reveal a complex ideological, political and policy-driven battle among a

wide range of groups acting in the domestic and foreign policies fronts. Drawing on

the methodological approaches of public policy analysis, this paper focuses on three

critical moments in which US efforts to reform its immigration system clashed with

the influence of Cuban-American hardliners. This group has been successful in using its

political clout in order to influence the public debate against repeal, by insisting on the

longer term ideological value of the Act in the context of the US Cuba policy, in spite of

structural trends in favour of restricted immigration.

Key words: Cuban Adjustment Act, public policy, political process, immigration policy,

US Cuba policy, Cuban-Americans

Introduction

In the context of the Cold War, US refugee policies were conceived in alignment

with the goal of confronting international communism led by the Soviet Union.

1 PhD Candidate in Political Sciences, Department of Philosophy, History and

Sociology, University of Havana. Rodney González Maestry is a Cuban diplomat

and currently Counsellor at the US Embassy in Washington.

DOI:10.13169/intejcubastud.14.1.0013

14 ACADEMIC ARTICLE – RODNEY A. GONZÁLEZ MAESTREY

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 14.1 Summer 2022

As an example of the politicised nature of the US approach, a memorandum

from the National Security Council would describe the Refugee Relief Act of

1953 as a means to “encourage defection of all USSR nationals and ‘key’ person-

nel from satellite countries”, and suggested that it would “inflict a psychological

blow on communism” (Zolberg 2006: 322).

In the case of Cuba, President Dwight D. Eisenhower defined a flexible admis-

sion policy, in reaction to the triumph of the Revolution of 1 January 1959. The

policy was aimed at destabilising Cuban society by draining away its valuable

human resources, discrediting it and installing a counterrevolutionary social base

in the US. As a result, the physical presence and legal uncertainty of some 300,000

Cubans who had immigrated to the US at different stages since 19592 pressed for

changes to the US immigration system to ensure a successful resettlement pro-

gramme, especially in South Florida communities where most had relocated.

Thus, the US Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act (hereinafter, the

CAA) on 2 November 1966 in the context of both practical and political chal-

lenges. With broad popular support, the CAA was passed 300–25 in the House

of Representatives and by oral vote in the Senate. The Act legislative history (US

Congress 1966a) shows that concerns of some members of Congress – regarding

the excessive use of parole;3 its permanent nature; its contradictions with the

migration policy envisaged for Latin America; the impact on employment, fun-

damentally in black communities; and the possible weakening of the

counterrevolutionary mass in Cuba – were outweighed by the more strategic

intention of portraying Cuban migration as a testament of the failure of com-

munism, a central component of the US hemispheric foreign policy.

Through the CAA, Congress gave the Attorney General the discretionary preroga-

tive, under the regulations he may prescribe, to grant, after two years, later reduced

to one, legal permanent residence to Cuban nationals, provided they meet certain

requirements (US Congress 1966b). Its language did not explicitly define how the

2 Researchers Jesús Arboleya (2013) and Susan Eckstein (2009) agree that the study

of the Cuban migration flows after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 could be

organised in the following stages: 1959–62, more than 220,000 people; 1962–5,

about 58,000 irregularly; 1965, between 2,700 and 7,000 people, through the port

of Camarioca, Matanzas; 1965–73, more than 260,000 Cubans through the so-

called “Airlift”; 1980, about 125,000 people through the port of Mariel; 1994, more

than 35,000 rafters.

3 The issuance of the parole is a prerogative provided in the US Immigration and

Naturalization Act, for discretionary, casuistic use, in humanitarian situations or of

significant public benefit by the Attorney General, and since 2003, the Secretary of

Homeland Security (American Immigration Council 2018)