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Cubans Flee Country for Fear of Losing U.S. Special Treatment
Cubans have been leaving their country out of fear that the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations will affect their special status in America
Under the U.S. Cuban Adjustment Act of 1996, Cuban migrants can take advantage of the so-called "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, which dictates that those who set foot on U.S. soil can stay, while those captured at sea are sent back.
Since late 2015, countries in Central America have seen a surge in the number of Cubans entering. As the U.S.-Cuba relations began to thaw, many Cubans believe their preferential treatment is ending soon and it’s their last chance to go to America and obtain a green card quickly.
Above, Cuban migrants wait to receive humanitarian visas at a border post with Panama in Paso Canoas, Costa Rica on Nov. 14, 2015.
Nicaraguan riot police stand behind a Costa Rican police officer at a border post with Nicaragua in Penas Blancas, Costa Rica on Nov. 16, 2015. On the day before Nicaragua closed its border with Costa Rica to hundreds of Cubans who were heading for the United States, stoking diplomatic tensions over a growing wave of migrants making the journey north from the Communist-ruled country.
A Cuban migrant shows her toes decorated with the flags of Cuba, left, and the United States at a temporary shelter in La Cruz, Costa Rica, near the border with Nicaragua, on Nov. 17, 2015.
27,296 Cubans entered the United States in the first nine months of the 2015 fiscal year, a 78 percent increase from 2014, Reuters reported.
Cuban migrant Lenin Rivacoba stands at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Penas Blancas on Nov. 18, 2015. He was briefly blinded by tear gas, lost hearing in one ear and is now almost out of money. But Rivacoba, whose first name was given in honor of Soviet revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, says he would rather perish than return to his family in Cuba because it would mean giving up on the dream of a new life in the United States.
Cuban migrants use their cell phones in a bathroom at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua in Penas Blancas, on Nov. 18, 2015. Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez had proposed a "humanitarian corridor" for Cuban migrants transiting Central America on their way to the United States.
A Cuban migrant shouts "Cuba" upon arriving at the beach after crossing the border from Colombia through the jungle as tourists stand by in La Miel, Panama on Dec. 2, 2015. At the time local authorities in La Miel said some 100 to 150 Cubans had been entering Panama from Colombia every day for since September, 2015.
Cuban migrant Ivan Tamayo, left, shows his compatriot Dany Cejas a document which will allow migrants to continue their journey to the Guatemala-Mexico border, at a shelter in La Cruz on Jan. 11, 2016. About 180 Cubans left Costa Rica at night on Jan. 12, 2016.
Read more on Reuters.