[NYTr] Cuba says US issuing visas too slowly
 
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 20:19:48 -0500 (CDT)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
AP (sent by Jane Franklin) - Jul 17, 2007

Same old story.
Siempre,
Jane Franklin
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jbfranklins

Cuba Says U.S. Issuing Visas Too Slowly

By WILL WEISSERT
The Associated Press

July 17, 2007

Cuba chided the United States on Tuesday for being too slow to issue
visas to Cubans wanting off the island.

The Foreign Relations Ministry indicated the dearth of visas for Cubans 
could be part of what it sees as President Bush's efforts to
destabilize the communist government and warned it could lead to a
spike in illegal immigration.

Under a 1994 agreement, Washington uses a lottery system to grant up to 
20,000 Cubans permission to emigrate to America each fiscal year ending 
Sept. 30. But Cuba's government said Tuesday that through June 30, only 
10,724 Cubans had been granted visas _ just 53.6 percent of the annual 
minimum.

'It is evident a considerable delay exists,' the ministry said in a 
statement published on the front page of the Communist Party newspaper 
Granma.

'Why would (the United States) want to make the migratory situation
worse between both countries?' the statement asked, accusing Bush of
wishing Fidel Castro would die and being desperate to 'force the
'changes' he wants to impose on Cuba, even when they give rise to a
situation of instability that will surely also affect the United
States.'

Castro, who turns 81 next month, has not been seen in public since 
announcing that emergency intestinal surgery was forcing him to step
down in favor of a provisional government headed by his younger brother
Raul. Life on the island, however, has remained little-changed.

The U.S. and Cuba do not have formal diplomatic relations but maintain 
interests sections _ instead of embassies _ in each other's
territories. A spokesman at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana could
not be reached for comment Tuesday.

It is not unusual for U.S. authorities to wait until close to the end
of the fiscal year to issue the minimum number of Cuban visas, however,
and the State Department has in the past accused Cuba of manipulating
the process.

Some Cubans who get U.S. visas are denied exit permits by Havana, which 
arbitrarily deems them 'defectors,' the State Department says. Cuba
also regularly refuses to allow doctors and other medical professionals
to leave even if they have visas.

The U.S. further claims that Cuba collects an estimated $12 million per
year in fees for exit permits and medical examinations that some
U.S.-bound migrants have difficulty paying.

A U.S. policy that grew out of the 1994 immigration agreement is the 
so-called 'wet foot/dry foot,' where by Cubans who are interdicted at
sea are generally returned to their homeland, while those who reach
U.S. shores are usually allowed to stay.

Cuba says the policy encourages its citizens to seek risky and
illegally ways to emigrate. Thousands of Cubans attempt to leave the
island on makeshift rafts or people smugglers' speedboats bound for
America every year.

The Foreign Ministry went on to 'insist' that the United States issue
at least 20,000 visas before the deadline, scrap 'wet-foot/dry foot'
and 'cease the manipulation of this topic for political ends.' It also
demanded that Washington, 'end the incessant subversive propaganda and
psychological war against Cuba.'

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

 
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