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“We went to protest for them to keep that program that is vital for Cuban doctors,” says Alberto López, a Cuban critical care specialist who escaped from a medical mission in Venezuela.

In ten years, more than 8,000 Cuban professionals have benefitted from this program, especially in countries like Venezuela and Brazil.

“We fear for what could happen to our colleagues. There are many people who are on the way and we do not know what can happen now, because they can neither return to the mission nor to take shelter under the parole program,” explains Lopez.

Havana has long called for its repeal, which was announced by President Barack Obama on Thursday, and had made it a condition for progress in normalizing relations with Washington

Another of the protesters called for the granting of visas to all those who have been waiting in Colombia for a response to their requests.

“We are working as waiters, in markets, in whatever we can. We hardly have money to pay our expenses because we lost everything in our Cuban bank accounts. We’ve been waiting for months, and now Obama comes out with this. And I was counting on it,” he says.

The “healthcare cooperators,” as the Cuban government calls them, are assigned a bank account on the island where each month some of their wages are deposited in dollars. Those accounts, which remain frozen until the end of the mission, are seized by the Government if the doctors desert.

For Dr. Julio César Alfonso, president of Solidaridad sin Fronteras (Solidarity Without Borders) a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Cuban doctors who come to the United States, “it is very regrettable that President Obama leaves such a sad legacy to the Cuban community.”

Alfonso regrets that the new policy does not take into account that Cuba’s healthcare personnel who are working in third countries have the status of “modern slaves.”

“Cuban medical missions are considered one of the largest human trafficking operations that has ever existed in history,” he says.

“Doctors have always tried to escape. What is going to happen now is that it will end the organized ways of escaping from this reality. It is very negative what is happening,” says the doctor, who estimates that more than 3,000 professionals will be in migration limbo because they have escaped the missions but no longer have the certainty they will be accepted in the United States.

” Cuban medical missions are classified as one of the largest human trafficking operations that has ever existed in history”

The Cuban health system has 495,609 workers, according to the most recent data provided by the Government, of which more than 58,000 are specialized doctors. Its cooperation programs, which are funded through international organizations, extend to more than 90 countries in the world, from Africa to Russia.

The discomfort extends among Cuban doctors “on mission” in several countries.

“When health professionals leave Cuba we do it with an official passport. The government appropriates most of our salary and if we escape we are prevented from returning to Cuba for eight years,” explains a doctor living in Brazil who claims to have completed all her paperwork to receive the Parole. However, she asked that her identity not be revealed,” just in case.”

“Yesterday I was very nervous all afternoon, suddenly we got that bucket of cold water. I can only think of the other professionals that this measure leaves without protection. There are hundreds who were waiting for the opportunity to defect,” she explains.

Through the Mais Médicos (More Doctors) program, the Brazilian Government, at that time under the presidency of the Workers’ Party and allied with Cuba, hired more than 11,000 doctors through the Pan American Health Organization. The agreement, which included a payment of $ 3,300 per doctor per month, plus the payment of other fees for accommodation, represented significant income for the island’s economy, which in 2014 acknowledged that it received $ 8.2 billion in exchange for “medical services.”

Of the salary agreed to with the Government, only a third is paid to the Cuban professionals.

Since the beginning of the program in 2013, defections have been routine. In 2016, 1,439 health professionals escaped to the United States; another 1,600 took the exams to revalidate their titles in Brazil and to obtain contracts to work their on their own. Marriage has also been another way to escape the control of the Cuban government. According to data provided by the Brazilian authorities, more than 1,000 Cubans have marital ties with citizens of that country.

“I was able to submit my paperwork. Now I have to wait, but what will happen to others who were thinking of fleeing?” asks a Cuban doctor who was in Venezuela.

“At least before you had the security of knowing that if you jumped you would have a place to fall. If you escape now you know you’re playing outside the rules,” an X-Ray specialist, who works in the state of Anzoátegui, said using the vocabulary of sports. “Venezuela is going down the tubes like Cuba but now we have no choice but to stay here.”

In an official communication, aired jointly in both countries, the Cuban Government committed to receiving individuals from a list of 2,746 Cubans who were considered inadmissible after the Mariel exodus and others who did not originally appear on the list.

This measure by the United States does away with the entry by land and sea of ​​all Cuban citizens without visas, repealing the “wet foot/dry foot” policy that gave legal status to Cuban migrants who managed to reach US territory.

From now on, citizens of the island will be treated like any other Latin American migrant.

“And now what do we do?” asks Yuniel Ramos, a Cuban migrant who is in Honduras accompanied by more than forty compatriots heading to the United States.

“We are desperate, in the middle of the jungle, how can Obama bypass Congress and change things without even giving us a period of time to arrive?” he added.

The end of that policy was an old demand from the Cuban government, which called it “criminal” and “responsible for the deaths of thousands of Cubans.”

The “wet foot/dry foot” policy is an executive order, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995, following the Rafter Crisis of that era, put into effect after negotiations with the Government of the Island.

“The Government of Cuba agrees to begin accepting the return of Cuban nationals with return orders,” read the press release issued as part of the exchange.

The end of that policy was an old demand from the Cuban government, which called it “criminal” and “responsible for the deaths of thousands of Cubans.”

The presidential adviser who made the announcement in the United States also suggested that the measure is consistent with the strategy proposed by the Administration to promote change in Cuba.

Between 2006 and 2015, more than 8,000 health professionals have arrived in the United States through the Medical Parole Program, according to figures from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). In 2015 alone, 1,663 Cuban health professionals were welcomed. The elimination of the CCMP program represents an important triumph for the Cuban government, which earns great profits from the work of its doctors abroad, who are paid only a small portion of the money paid to the Cuban government by foreign governments in exchange for their services.

President-elect Donald Trump threatened to end Obama’s reestablishment of diplomatic relations unless the Cuban government signed a “better deal” with him.

On December 17, 2014 both countries announced the reestablishment of diplomatic relations after 50 years, generating a wave of repulsion among the historic exile in Miami.

“Castro uses refugees as pawns to obtain more concessions from Washington, so there is no reason to end the Cuban medical program, which is a reckless concession to a regime that sends its doctors to foreign nations in a modern-day servitude,” said Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

“And now what do we do?” asks Yuniel Ramos, a Cuban migrant who is in Honduras accompanied by more than forty compatriots heading to the United States.

“The revocation of the Professional Parole Program for Cuban Doctors was done because that is what the Cuban dictatorship wanted and the White House gave in to what Castro wants, instead of defending the democratic values ​​of the United States,” she added.

According to Alexander Jiménez, a Cuban living in Ecuador, the news left him in shock.

“I had everything ready to go to the United States with my wife, I have a lot of family members on the road, they are in the jungle, we are desperate because we cannot communicate with them and now they cannot continue on their way,” he said.

Dariel Gonzalez, a Cuban health specialist who came to the United States a year ago through the CMPP program, said he had “run out of words.”

“It’s a low blow that Obama is giving to all health professionals who want to escape the slavery to which they are subjected by the Cuban government. This leaves us totally defenseless,”he said.

On the same Thursday that the announcement occurred in Havana and Washington, meetings were held between delegations of both countries to discuss the trafficking of people and the claims of confiscated goods.

Both countries stated, however, that the United States will continue granting 20,000 “exceptional” visas to Cubans on the island to promote safe migration between countries.. The family reunification program will also be maintained.

“It is important that Cuba has a population of young people who become agents of change,” said White House adviser Ben Rhodes.

The White House has made clear that it is aware that the reasons for emigrating are more economic than political.

Cubans who show up at the border will be treated like any other immigrant. They will have the opportunity to explain their motives if they are afraid to return home, according to Ben Rhodes.

According to the announcement, Cuba will change its own immigration policy and will allow Cubans to remain outside the country for a term of up to four years before they lose their right to reside in the country. Until today, Cubans who remained outside the country for more than two years forfeited their right to live in their native country.

Note from the Editor: Contributing to this report were reporters from El Nuevo Herald: Nora Gámez and Abel Fernandez.