More than 30,000 Cuban Americans ask Trump to reverse order to suspend immigration

More than 30,000 Cuban Americans have signed a petition requesting that President Donald Trump reverse a decree issued in June to suspend immigration from the island — including family reunifications — until the end of the year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This proclamation is separating families, a lot of children, parents, spouses and brothers/sisters have been waiting long years to be reunited with their families,” said the petition posted on the White House’s “WE the PEOPLE” site.

For Maidelys Crespo Gómez, a Cuban national who resides in Havana and has been separated for years from her husband, Brayan Cordero, who lives in Miami, the executive order further lengthens the “ordeal” of separation.

“Thousands of families have waited long years paying for a legal process in hopes of reuniting. It is an eternity. Children who have grown up without parents, wives separated from their husbands ... Only those who have gone through this process know of the agony and pain that marks a family separated by years,” Crespo, 30, told el Nuevo Herald.

Crespo also said that Cuban-American citizens and permanent residents “have worked hard, paid taxes and followed the legal path to be able to reunite with their family.”

Crespo said her family, among those who signed the petition, feels as if they’ve been “forgotten” by the U.S. government.

“We are requesting President Donald J. Trump to cancel this proclamation and grant our families entry to the United States as soon as borders open and that we do not have to wait until December 31st, 2020,” states the petition, which is circulating online.

WE the PEOPLE is a section of the White House site for citizens to express their views. For a petition to be considered for review, at least 100,000 signatures must be collected within 30 days. The petition requesting the “cancellation of proclamation suspending legal immigration to the United States” has been on the White House site for two weeks.

The White House has said the measure seeks to protect American workers from an avalanche of foreigners as COVID-19 has left 21 million Americans unemployed. However, the economy recently showed positive signs, creating 2.5 million additional jobs, according to various press reports.

The executive order, signed in June, is a continuation of a previous measure issued in April that limited immigration to the United States for three months, generating controversy among groups that defend civil rights in the U.S.

For immigration attorney Wilfredo Allen, who practices in South Florida, the effects of the new executive order on Cuban immigration are “draconian.”

The order signed by Trump affects the claims seeking family reunification by permanent U.S. residents to spouses, from parents to children of legal age and those adult children now with spouses in Cuba. It also affects claims of those seeking to reunite with siblings, said Allen, who calculates that the administration’s restrictive policies toward Cuban emigration have prevented the arrival in the last three years of about 60,000 people.

“The immigration process to the United States is much more complicated for Cubans because the Parole Family Reunification Program, a special program for Cubans established in 2007, has been on hold for years,” Allen said. “Many of the immigration categories affected by the new measure were those with thousands of people who have been waiting for their case to be reviewed for years.“

The Trump administration suspended that program for Cubans, leaving more than 20,000 families in limbo.

The U.S. government also suspended the processing of immigrant visas at its embassy in Havana after bizarre health incidents that left dozens of American and Canadian diplomats ill.

To the executive order of President Trump is added the temporary closure due to the pandemic of the United States Consulate in Guyana that had been processing immigrant visas for Cubans.

“There is a very large percentage of Cubans who are stranded at the border right now who have open legal immigration cases,” said Allen. “The pressure inside Cuba and the delay of the system have made them risk everything and cross through Mexico to request asylum at the border.”

According to official statistics from the Customs and Border Protection Office, in fiscal year 2019 more than 21,000 Cubans reached the southern border, triple that of the previous fiscal year, when there were just over 7,000. As of February this year, the latest available statistics, about 3,300 Cuban immigrants had arrived.

They won the visa lottery but can’t enter the U.S.

There is concern among the winners of the so-called visa lottery who will not be able to enter the country until the new year either. Many of those visa winners (essentially a random raffle) have joined the petition effort.

“The Cuban winners of the diversity visa draw are very concerned that we could lose the opportunity of our lives if the executive order continues. We need to receive our visa before September 30,” said Cristian Daniel Cristo, one of the winners.

Cristo, who has visited the United States as a part of a student exchange program, said that he asks the Cuban-American community and the politicians of South Florida for help “so that thousands of Cubans can achieve their dream of freedom.”

Last year, Cuba and Venezuela led the number of visas won in the diversity draw with 2,703 and 1,068 visas, respectively.

Following the executive order, tens of thousands of winners of the diversity lottery, which grants permanent residence to citizens of countries with little representation in the United States, have been left without the possibility of traveling to the United States.

“The visa lottery is a target of the Trump administration, which wants to eliminate it,” said immigration attorney Alejandro Vázquez. Trump had previously criticized the visa lottery, saying it was “a horror show” and that “some very bad people” have migrated through that program.

Vazquez said a group of attorneys seeks to challenge the administration in court to ensure that the winners obtain some form of protection and can emigrate to the United States.

For their part, Cristo and other winners of the visa raffle have created groups on social media to support each other.

“The United States is the country of opportunity and freedom,” he said. “There you can be as you are without fear of being judged. I am not going to give up because I want to work and eat decently with hard work, the sweat off my forehead.”