Cubans Will March in Miami in Favor of Family Reunification

The Cuban Family Reunification Program stopped due to the mysterious attacks suffered by US and Canadian diplomats. (EFE / Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 14 December 2019 — A group of Cubans will demonstrate this Sunday in Miami to demand the resumption of the Cuban Family Reunification Program (CFRP), a program that stopped with the paralyzation of most of the procedures at the US Embassy in Havana following the mysterious acoustic attacks suffered by American and Canadian diplomats.

The demonstration will be at Cuban Memorial Park located at 13th Avenue and 8th Street Southwest in Miami and is scheduled for 11:00 in the morning.

“I have my son in Cuba pleading for the resumption of the CFRP. It is very difficult for me to talk about this when I haven’t been able to hug my son for four years!” Indira Solis told the Nuevo Herald. She belongs to one of the more than 20,000 families waiting for the resumption of the program.

Solis, who is the organizer of several social media groups to ask for the continuation of the immigration program, says that on several occasions they have asked for the help of members of congress and politicians in South Florida. They have also used tweets and “virtual demonstrations.”

Created in 2007, the CFRP allows citizens and legal residents in the United States to request so-called ’parole’ (prior admission) for their relatives in Cuba. “If the parole is granted, family members can enter the United States without having to wait for their immigrant visa cases to be processed according to the quotas assigned,” explains the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service.

On November 19, the Cuban-Americans of the Miami-Dade Commission rejected a resolution supporting a bill in Congress that would restore the Cuban Family Reunification Program, generating outrage among the petitioners of relatives in Cuba.

“It is very sad that Cuban politicians here lend themselves to the same game as the dictatorship. Keeping families divided has been the work of the Cuban regime. It is incredible that now they also want to help the Cuban dictatorship to martyrize our people more,” said Yuleika Martínez, a doctor who escaped from government missions abroad and has two small girls in Cuba.

For Gretel Moreno whose relatives on the Island are awaiting the approval interview, the United States Government has a responsibility that it must fulfill. “In August 2016, the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) sent letters of invitation to thousands of Cuban-American families who already had an approved family petition case, to participate in the Cuban Family Reunification Program by Parole,” she explains.

“We ask that both USCIS and the State Department seek a solution to these problems that are already more than 2 years old,” Moreno complains. “They have charged for services they have not provided.”

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