The US administration has repealed a measure that grants automatic residency to virtually every Cuban who arrived, whether or not they had visas, ending an exception to the immigration policy. This policy promoted the arrival of many Cubans, who took advantage of this benefit to settle in the United States.
The end of the old policy: "wet foot, dry foot", which allowed any Cuban who reached US soil to stay, is effective immediately since Thursday.
US and Cuba spent months negotiating the change, including an agreement from the Cuban government to allow those turned away from the United States to return.
Obama stated that with this change US will continue to welcome Cubans as the US welcomes immigrants from other nations.
Obama added that the ones who supported the normalization process think that Cuba now will take Cubans back to the island; not leave them stateless or send them to jail, which is a huge improvement.
Cuba welcomed the changes, declaring they would benefit all the region by discouraging trafficking of people and dangerous journeys which led to bottlenecks of Cubans in Central America in 2016.
"Today, a detonator of immigration crises is over. The United States achieves legal, secure and ordered migration from Cuba," declared Josefina Vidal, the Cuban foreign ministry's chief for United States affairs.
Not all the people like it, the new policy sparked mixed emotions in Miami's Little Havana. Mario Garcia, a Cuban mechanic in Little Havana, said that he is angry with the changes. He declared that Communism is not over, thus, changing the old policy by the new one is not good.
Eulalia Jimenez, from Venezuela, said the old policy was not fair to migrants from other countries because it gave a special treatment just to Cubans.
