Balseros ("rafters", from the Spanish balsa "raft") were boat people who emigrated without formal documentation in self constructed or precarious vessels from Cuba to neighboring states including The Bahamas, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and, most commonly, the United States since the 1994 Balsero crisis and during the wet feet, dry feet policy.
The August 1994 Cuban rafter crisis was the fourth wave of Cuban immigration following Castro's rise to power. [1] The 1994 Balseros Crisis was ended by the agreement of the wet feet, dry feet policy between Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro.
After 1994, balseros continued to arrive in the United States from Cuba. In the 2015 fiscal year, 4,473 balseros attempted to come to the United States. In fiscal year 2016, the number was 7,411. In January 2017, the wet feet, dry feet policy came to an end, and now any balsero can be subject to deportation. Shortly before the policy ended, the U.S. Coast Guard noticed a spike in balseros attempting to reach the United States. [2]
Since the end of the wet feet, dry feet policy in 2017, fewer balseros attempted to make the journey to the United States. Some still continue to come with less legal support. If they manage to arrive in Florida the only legal way to remain is to apply for political asylum. [3]
Often the boats created are unsafe, and utilize engines not often used for boats such as lawnmower engines. Of those that choose to emigrate by raft, some are captured by Cuban authorities, others arrive safely outside Cuba, some are intercepted by United States authorities and given medical care only to be returned to Cuba, while others may be lost at sea and their deaths will go unreported. [4]
It is estimated 16,000 to 100,000 Balseros perished at sea in their flight away from Cuba. [5]
Any failed attempt to cross the sea by raft can end in drowning.
The advent of mobile phones, with GPS, and those that use satellite connection, has increased the possibilities of survival,[ citation needed ] because they allow users to call through a satellite to ask for help, even when located in the middle of the sea at a long distance from the coast.
Elián González Brotons is a Cuban industrial engineer and politician who, as a young child, became embroiled in an international custody and immigration controversy in 2000 involving the governments of Cuba and the United States, his father Juan Miguel González Quintana, his other relatives in Cuba and in Miami, and Miami's Cuban community.
The Mariel boatlift was a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980. The term "Marielito" is used to refer to these refugees in both Spanish and English. While the exodus was triggered by a sharp downturn in the Cuban economy, it followed on the heels of generations of Cubans who had immigrated to the United States in the preceding decades.
Cuban Americans are Americans who immigrated from or are descended from immigrants from Cuba, regardless of racial or ethnic origin. As of 2023, Cuban Americans were the third largest Hispanic and Latino American group in the United States after Mexican Americans and Stateside Puerto Ricans.
Brothers to the Rescue is a Miami-based activist nonprofit organization headed by José Basulto. Formed by Cuban exiles, the group is widely known for its opposition to the Cuban government and its former leader Fidel Castro. The group describes itself as a humanitarian organization aiming to assist and rescue raft refugees emigrating from Cuba and to "support the efforts of the Cuban people to free themselves from dictatorship through the use of active non-violence". Brothers to the Rescue, Inc., was founded in May 1991 "after several pilots were touched by the death of" fifteen-year-old Gregorio Perez Ricardo, who "fleeing Castro's Cuba on a raft, perished of severe dehydration in the hands of U.S. Coast Guard officers who were attempting to save his life."
The wet feet, dry feet policy or wet foot, dry foot policy was the name given to a former interpretation of the 1995 revision of the application of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 that essentially says that anyone who emigrated from Cuba and entered the United States would be allowed to pursue residency a year later. Prior to 1995, the U.S. government allowed all Cubans who reached U.S. territorial waters to remain in the U.S. After talks with the Cuban government, the Clinton administration came to an agreement with Cuba that it would stop admitting people intercepted in U.S. waters.
The Cuban exodus is the mass emigration of Cubans from the island of Cuba after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Throughout the exodus, millions of Cubans from diverse social positions within Cuban society emigrated within various emigration waves, due to political repression and disillusionment with life in Cuba.
Balseros is a 2002 Catalan documentary co-directed by Carles Bosch and Josep Maria Domènech about Cubans leaving during the Período Especial.
Cuban immigration has greatly affected Miami-Dade County since 1959, creating what is known as "Cuban Miami." However, Miami reflects global trends as well, such as the growing trends of multiculturalism and multiracialism; this reflects the way in which international politics shape local communities.
Operation Sea Signal was a United States Department of Defense operation in the Caribbean in response to an influx of Cuban and Haitian migrants attempting to gain asylum in the United States. As a result, the migrants became refugees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The operation took place from May 1992 to February 1996 under Joint Task Force 160. The task force processed over 50,000 refugees as part of the operation. The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy rescued refugees from the sea and other migrants attempted to cross the landmine field that then separated the U.S. and Cuban military areas. Soldiers, Airmen, and Marines provided refugee camp security at Guantanamo Bay, and ship security on board the Coast Guard cutters. This mass exodus led to the U.S. immigration implementation of the Wet Feet Dry Feet Policy. The mass Cuban exodus of 1994 was similar to the Mariel boat lift in 1980.
The Maleconazo was a protest on 5 August 1994, in which thousands of Cubans took to the streets around the Malecón in Havana to demand freedom and express frustration with the government. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Cuba fell into a crippling economic crisis that had many citizens looking to flee the island. On the day of the protest, the Cuban police blocked people from boarding tugboats leaving Havana, prompting thousands of citizens to storm the streets in the largest anti-government demonstration Cuba had seen since the Cuban Revolution. In the following weeks, President Fidel Castro quelled the frustration by opening the doors of the country and allowing Cubans to leave, which had a significant impact on Cuba's relationship with the United States moving forward.
Lizbet Martínez is a Cuban violinist and English teacher at M.A. Milam K-8 Center.
Cuban immigration to the United States, for the most part, occurred in two periods: the first series of immigration of wealthy Cuban Americans to the United States resulted from Cubans establishing cigar factories in Tampa and from attempts to overthrow Spanish colonial rule by the movement led by José Martí, the second to escape from Communist rule under Fidel Castro following the Cuban Revolution. Massive Cuban migration to Miami during the second series led to major demographic and cultural changes in Miami. There was also economic emigration, particularly during the Great Depression in the 1930s. As of 2019, there were 1,359,990 Cubans in the United States.
The 1994 Cuban rafter crisis which is also known as the 1994 Cuban raft exodus or the Balsero crisis was the emigration of more than 35,069 Cubans to the United States via makeshift rafts. The exodus occurred over five weeks following rioting in Cuba; Fidel Castro announced in response that anyone who wished to leave the country could do so without any hindrance. Fearing a major exodus, the Clinton administration would mandate that all rafters captured at sea be detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
"Refugees as weapons" is a term used to describe a hostile government organizing, or threatening to organize, a sudden influx of refugees into another country or political entity with the intent of causing political disturbances in that entity. The responsible country usually seeks to extract concessions from the targeted country and achieve some political, military, and/or economic objective.
The emigration of Cubans, from the 1959 Cuban Revolution to October of 1962, has been dubbed the Golden exile and the first emigration wave in the greater Cuban exile. The exodus was referred to as the "Golden exile" because of the mainly upper and middle class character of the emigrants. After the success of the revolution various Cubans who had allied themselves or worked with the overthrown Batista regime fled the country. Later as the Fidel Castro government began nationalizing industries many Cuban professionals would flee the island. This period of the Cuban exile is also referred to as the Historical exile, mainly by those who emigrated during this period.
Haitian boat people are refugees from Haiti who flee the country by boat, usually to South Florida and sometimes the Bahamas.
A Cuban exile is a person who emigrated from Cuba in the Cuban exodus. Exiles have various differing experiences as emigrants depending on when they migrated during the exodus.
Cuban boat people mainly refers to refugees who flee Cuba by boat and ship to the United States.
The idea of the Cuba de ayer is a mythologized idyllic view of Cuba before the overthrow of the Batista government in the Cuban Revolution. This idealized vision of pre-revolutionary Cuba typically reinforces the ideas that Cuba before 1959 was an elegant, sophisticated, and largely white country that was ruined by the government of Fidel Castro. The Cuban exiles who fled after 1959 are viewed as majorly white, and had no general desire to leave Cuba but did so to flee tyranny. Cuban exiles who uphold this image of the Cuba de ayer view their version of Cuban culture as more desirable than American culture, and that it is best to recreate their lost culture of the Cuba de ayer in the United States. Proponents of the image of the Cuba de ayer also view Cuba as a more worthy country to live in than the United States and hope to return Cuba to the Cuba de ayer after the hoped for fall of the government of Fidel Castro. Critics of the idea of the Cuba de ayer claim it is a nationalist myth created for white Cuban exiles that ignores the reality of Cuban life before 1959, and embraces an exotic vision of Cuba.
The 2021–2023 Cuban migration crisis refers to an ongoing event characterized by a significant surge of Cuban nationals leaving the country, mostly to the United States, due to a combination of factors, including economic hardships and political uncertainties in their homeland. The crisis has resulted in a notable increase in Cuban encounters at the United States' southern border, with many attempting to cross into the country through both regular border crossings and sea arrivals, particularly in South Florida. The mass exodus has posed humanitarian, social, and political challenges for both Cuba and the U.S., prompting discussions and negotiations between the two nations to address the crisis and manage the flow of migrants. It has been described as the largest mass emigration in Cuba's history. It is estimated that nearly 500,000 Cubans sought refuge into the United States between 2021-2023, accounting for nearly 5% of Cuba’s population. It is estimated that 60% of the new Cuban arrival between 2021-2023 (300,000), have settled in Miami-Dade County.