Obama ending ‘wet-foot, dry-foot’ policy allowing Cubans reaching U.S. soil to stay and receive residency
By Karen DeYoung January 12 at 5:14 PM
President Obama, in one of his last foreign policy initiatives, will lift the “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy that has allowed Cubans reaching U.S. soil to stay and receive American residency, while sending home those intercepted at sea, according to U.S. officials.
The policy, put in place by the Clinton administration in 1996, altered the long-standing special immigration status of Cubans in place since the 1960s that had sent hundreds of thousands across the Florida Straits, often in leaky boats or homemade rafts.
A new flood of emigrants has attempted to leave the island by sea since U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations were renewed in July 2015, with many fearing that it was their last chance to automatically gain legal status in the United States.
Cuba has long complained about the policy, saying it encouraged illegal traffic and endangered the lives of those in unseaworthy vessels.
U.S. and Cuban diplomatic officials have been holding talks in Washington this week on “human trafficking,” one of a number of bilateral negotiating tracks set up in the wake of diplomatic normalization.
The new policy, expected to be announced Thursday, will go into effect immediately, according to the Associated Press.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-ending-wet-foot-dry-foot-policy-allowing-cubans-reaching-us-soil-to-stay-and-receive-residency/2017/01/12/21bbaac2-d912-11e6-b8b2-cb5164beba6b_story.html?pushid=breaking-news_1484260363&tid=notifi_push_breaking-news&utm_term=.ffbc5fa66c66
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