Question

1) How has U.S. Foreign Policy distinguished Cuban migrants from Haitian migrants since the 1960s? (100 to 200 words) 2) What has been the general experiences of Caribbean migrants? Provide one example. (100 to 200 words) 3) How do William J. Fielding, Virginia Ballance, Carol Scriven, Thaddeus Mc Donald & Pandora Johnson explain the stigma of being "Haitian" in The Bahamas? (100 to 200 words)

Answer 1

1) The U.S. Foreign Policy distinguished between Cuban migrants from Haitian migrants since the 1960. The Cuban migrants are always preferred over Haitian migrants with respect to providing refuge, granting visas for permanent residential status and other opportunities including employment, social status, etc. U.S. always maintained a good relation with Cuba since the early days, and the business policy between the two nations make these immigrants more welcoming than Haitian immigrants. The Cubans seek refuge is the U.S. due to political threats in the nation whereas the Haitian usually come due to poor economic conditions in their homeland.

The Cuban Adjustment Act known as CAA enacted in 1966 is one of the major policy which prioritizes Cuban immigrants and guarantees that Cubans who are staying in US for a year after January 1959 can apply for permanent residence in the US. The Cuba-US Migration Agreement is another step towards providing residence to such immigrants and it allows 20,000 immigrants every year to seek asylum in the country and the permanent residence is provided by way of visa lottery for selecting the residents. Unlike the Cuba-US relation, the Haiti-US relation was never better since the early years of 1915. US used its power to detained more than 30,000 Haitians during the period from 1915 to 1934, and jailed more than 40,000 people. The Haitians are not welcome to US and the foreign policy has been so outlined as to reduce the number of such immigrants in the country. Unlike the Cuban immigrants who are given permanent residential status, the Haitians are sent back to their homeland without even considering the reason for seeking refuge and the percentage for provision of asylum to such immigrants is less than 0.05%. The situation even worsened since the earthquake took place in Haiti in 2010 and the number of immigrants increased, it took life of more than 200,000 people with 1.5 million being homeless. Instead of providing any provision of permanent residence, the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) extended the Temporary Protected Status of these immigrants during the calamity.

The preference is given to Cuban immigrants is due to the business and political relation between the two nations, and the status of such immigrants. The political relation between US and Haiti was never better which impacted the Haitian immigrants adversely due to the unwelcoming attitude of the Americans. Whereas the literacy rate in Cuba is 99.98%, the literacy rate and education level among Haitian are quite low with low standard of living. To control the Haitian migration in US, the government ensured not to provide any resort to the immigrants entering the country by illegal means. Since the earthquake the immigration policy has been tightened and only the Temporary Protected Status was given for a year till 2011. The Haitians except for a very small percentage, only get the temporary residence in the country even during the eras of emergency and crisis, whereas the Cubans are subject to yearly grant of permanent residential status in US. And the number of immigrants coming from Cuba, stands as 5th largest among the others.

Note - As there were 3 different questions, answer is being provided for the first question. Thank you