The Onslaught of Undocumented Cubans Arriving in the US Crashes Social Services / Diario de Cuba

diariodecubalogoDiariodeCuba.org, Miami, 10 July 2015 – The increase in the number of Cubans who ae arriving undocumented in the United States due to the announcement of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba is so great that Florida’s social services cannot cope; they have crashed and have a waiting list of almost two months, reports the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

This situation slows the settlement of these people in other states, the receipt of work permits and emergency monetary help. Those recently arrived fear that the renewal of diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level will put an end to exceptional immigration laws favoring Cubans.

According to figures from Immigration Services, since the October 1st beginning of the fiscal year, almost 19,000 Cubans have entered the country either by sea or across the Mexican border, a figure equivalent to the total arrivals of the previous year. Two thirds of those arrived since the announcement of the thaw.

The newspaper relates the case of the Cuban Antonio Mora, 27 years of age, who arrived in Miami after entering the country at Laredo, Texas, a border crossing with Nuevo Laredo in Mexico. He was interviewed, and he presented his case as a Cuban refugee and was admitted in to the country easily.

He immediately moved to south Florida, but he has no relatives there, and he has been homeless. The young man survives in the open in a shopping center parking lot in the city of Doral in the Miami metropolitan area together with three other fellow countrymen.

“We came without money or family. In Cuba it is said that the United States’ government gives asylum to Cubans. Meanwhile, we have to be outdoors,” he emphasizes with a certain despair.

Catholic social service organizations say that they are overwhelmed. “Many are coming. We operate on state programs and private contributions,” say sources consulted by the media.

“But with the crisis, contributions have fallen and funds are exhausted. We don’t have the capacity to process so many people,” explains Amaldo Vicente, one of the volunteers from Catholic Charities, the most important Florida home for refugees, without greater detail because he is not authorized to comment on the issue.

Translated by Mary Lou Keel