U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks at the flag-raising ceremony at the newly re-opened U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, on August 14, 2015.
While British royalty is far more glamorous, and will rightly command public attention for a little while longer, don’t avert your attention from real modern-day empires. There are only two countries in the world that Coca-Cola hasn’t yet colonized. One of them is North Korea; the other will soon have—once again—a fully functioning American embassy that can process immigration applications and help Cubans reunite with their family members in the United States: a development which, though short of systemic reform, will likely discourage illegal immigration.
President Obama had rescinded the “wet feet, dry feet” policy—which allowed those Cubans who made it on American soil to remain—in 2017. And yet, between July 2021 and June 2022, nearly 200,000 Cuban migrants were apprehended on land and sea (compared with fewer than 40,000 in the previous fiscal year), escaping the privations inflicted on them by the communist party’s monocracy. While the jury is still out on whether immigration to the West expedites liberalization in authoritarian states, the news from Havana will likely bring a noticeable reduction in attempted border crossings and maritime interdictions. (It will likely also bring Coca-Cola’s unmistakeable, scarlet letters of liberty slightly closer to the Pearl of the Antilles).
I was recently bemoaning, with a former official from the G.W. Bush White House, the blurred criteria by which U.S. authorities are supposed to determine who deserves asylum. Contradictory terms such as “climate refugee” have gained great currency in humanitarian circles, but the designation in international and U.S. law is clearly reserved for political pariahs and dissident self-exilees. There may be good reason to consider revising this (or, better yet, building different immigration avenues that might accommodate those fleeing arid wastelands or gang violence or destitution). But, for the time being, there are plenty of unambiguous cases of refugees who would find relief in the United States—and would be a boon for a country too many of whose citizens today are winking at illiberalism Left and Right.
The author and boozer Basil Woon made it clear in 1928 that it was the American spirit of experimentation that probably resulted in the Cuba Libre: island rum and Coke (the brand was present there between the end of the Spanish–American War and the Cuban Revolution) with a dash and a crown of lime, mixed frequently at the American Club in Havana by innovative Yankees. I can scarcely think of a legacy more worthy of preservation (which is what the principle of conservatism is all about).
Nod in approval of:
John Katko (R., N.Y.) and the passage of the Bridging the Gap for New Americans Act, which finally prompts the federal government to turn its sclerotic gaze to “immigrants in our community[ies] who have valuable professional backgrounds but consistently experience underemployment or unemployment due to arbitrary barriers.” Fortunately, there are organizations such as Upwardly Global and World Education Services who have always recognized immigrants as potential peers and contributors—not perpetual victims—and have many ideas about how to remove such barriers.
Carine Najjar’s writing in the Wall Street Journal, after the latest act in the ongoing migrant-relocation theatrics (starring Florida and Texas, directed by Washington, D.C.; supporting credits to New York and now Dukes County, Massachusetts) —
The White House calls Mr. Abbott’s busing “shameful,” but the Biden administration appears to be doing the same thing. [New York City mayor] Adams has said that buses are sent by the federal government as well as the state. The city of El Paso, which has a Democratic mayor, is chartering buses separate from Mr. Abbott’s operations and soliciting reimbursements from FEMA, according to the Texas Tribune.
The true culprits are in Washington, not Austin. Congress hasn’t enacted meaningful reform to accommodate more legal immigration or stabilize the border, and the federal executive branch has fallen down on the job of administering existing law at the border and elsewhere.
Squint skeptically at:
Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County, Texas, who has “enlisted agents from his office’s organized crime task force” to investigate the flying of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. He thinks it’s “too early to determine which laws might have been broken,” but that migrants have probably been “lured away from Texas to score political points.” I can save his department some time and taxpayer funds: In all likelihood, no laws have been broken and, of course, the stunt was intended to score political points—but, then again, so is Sheriff Salazar’s investigation. May we now turn back to the border and the need to redesign the immigration system?
The Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform, which (a month before the pageantry in Dukes County) got word from a federal judge that its lawsuit against the DHS can proceed. The basis of this lawsuit? That by halting construction of the border wall and reversing Trump-era border policies, the Biden administration has violated federal environmental law. Aside from the dubious (forgive me for saying) nature of this claim, the existence of MCIR itself seems suspect—it comprises a small Facebook page, a smaller Twitter account, and a hollow, skeletal website. Arguing the case on its behalf is (had you guessed it?) the Center for Immigration Studies.