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Edited on Mon Jul-26-10 09:24 AM by Mika
A "maze" of rules? LOL. I guess that the royal socialized treatment the US provides only to Cubans isn't provided elsewhere. Not getting this royal treatment, and having to comply with the rules that everyone else has to comply with makes them grumpy. Ultimately, they want to get to the USA so they can become the special class of US citizen/resident (for Cubans only) granted to them by the US gov. Political prisoners in Spain confronted with maze of immigration rules
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/25/v-fullstory/1746580/political-prisoners-in-spain-confronted.html#ixzz0unWgulH1
Cuban ex-political prisoners in Spain face an uncertain immigration
status and can be caught in a maze of rules.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM
Cuban refugee Jorge Pérez Fernández has the promise in writing: The Spanish government will grant him political asylum or residency within six months of his arrival in that country.
Fourteen months after he landed in Madrid, he has neither -- a harsh lesson on the vagaries of Spanish migration laws that he has already passed on to the former political prisoners who arrived from Havana in the past two weeks.
``I told them to stay alert,'' said Pérez, who launched a hunger strike last Monday to push for a resolution of his case: He's an undocumented migrant who can't work legally and gets no government aid.
``Economically speaking, I am totally defenseless,'' said the 42-year-old architect from the eastern Cuban town of Banes who arrived from the Guantánamo naval base and now lives in Spain's Canary Islands.
Jorge Graupera, a Cuban-born Madrid lawyer who specializes in immigration cases, is not surprised by Pérez's case or by the many questions surrounding the status of the 20 ex-prisoners and 100 relatives who arrived from Havana since July 12.
``There's a lot of confusion, even among immigration lawyers. We have never seen anything like this . . . because this has jumped outside the laws,'' said the lawyer, whose firm, Legal City, has offered to advise the former prisoners and relatives.
Graupera noted the Cubans arrived under a Spanish government agreement to give immediate entry to any of the 52 political prisoners that Cuba has promised to free, and who wish to move to Spain -- not as part of any standard immigration proceedings.
Spanish officials say they have offered the Cubans the best immigration status available, Assisted International Protection. That allows them to apply for permanent residency (which includes a work permit), the possibility of returning to Cuba if Havana permits it, and Spanish citizenship in four to five years.
Spain also has offered assistance with rent, clothes, food, transport, jobs, education and health services, as well as pocket money -- 85.27 euros a month per couple (about $110), 18.58 for children under 18 and 32.79 for older dependents.
Some of the ex-prisoners have said they might instead apply for political asylum, which could make it easier to reunite in Spain with other relatives now still in Cuba, said Gustavo Fuentes, a Cuban-born Madrid lawyer who is advising Pérez.
DESTINATION: U.S.?
Further complicating the issue: At least four of the ex-prisoners have said they might want to move on to the United States. But they would not qualify for U.S. political asylum once they have obtained residency or asylum in Spain. And applying for U.S. migrant visas would take at least three to five years, lawyers said. If they become Spanish citizens, they would not need U.S. visas for trips.
Relatives of some of the 32 dissidents still in Cuban jails have said they do not want to go to Spain but might consider leaving for the United States -- though that seems to be another tough option.
It usually takes three to five years for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana to issue entry permits as political refugees to those who qualify, Berta Soler said. Her husband, Angel Moya, is one of the 32, serving a 20-year sentence.
Obtaining U.S. migrant visas could take even longer, and a third way of entering the country, under ``humanitarian parole'' status, is reserved for those in seriously bad health or other special circumstances.
Miguel Sigler said it took him two years to win humanitarian parole for his jailed brother Ariel, a dissident who is paraplegic and bound to a wheelchair. Ariel was freed June 12 and is to fly to Miami on Wednesday for medical treatment.
Soler said officials at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana told her that applications for political refugees could be expedited for any of the 52 who wished to leave for the United States. The U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, however, has declined to confirm making such a promise.
A total of 4,800 Cubans were admitted to the United States with refugee status in fiscal year 2009, which ran from Oct. 1, 2008, to Sept. 30, 2009, according to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigrations Statistics.
What's more, the Cuban government can delay U.S. departures even further by withholding the required exit permits, known as White Cards, even after all other travel documents are in order.
Jorge Olivera, for example, had his papers in order but was missing his White Card even before he was swept up in a 2003 crackdown that sent 75 dissidents to prison. He was freed 21 months later because of ill health, but he remains in Cuba today because the government still refuses to issue him a White Card.
Pérez, the Cuban in Spain who still lacks documents, did not need a White Card because he fled Cuba in a small boat, fearing arrest for his dissident activities in Banes. He was picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard on April 16, 2008, and was taken to the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo because he had a reasonable fear of persecution if he was returned to Cuba.
FLOWN TO MADRID
On June 8, 2009, he and seven other Cubans held in Guantánamo were flown to Madrid under an agreement negotiated by the U.S. and Spanish governments. They carried a State Department document saying Madrid would give them asylum or residency in no more than six months.
The eight were scattered to provincial cities, with Pérez winding up in the Canary Islands. The other seven were awarded the lowest level of residency and work permit, which is good for only one year but can be renewed.
Pérez was not so lucky.
He applied for political asylum and was denied. He was told to apply for temporal residency under ``exceptional circumstances'' and was denied. He appealed and was denied.
Under an assistance package arranged by the State Department, he received $700 a month during his first six months in Spain from the International Organization for Migration, a nongovernment group based in Washington. After the six months, he has received nothing more, and nothing at all ever from the Spanish government.
Government officials finally told him last week that he would be granted residency for five years, his lawyer Fuentes said. One problem: The documents will not be ready in four months. He launched his hunger strike July 19.
That's why, Pérez said, when the recently released Cuban prisoners began arriving in Spain, he quickly phoned them at their one-star Welcome hostel in an industrial suburb of Madrid.
``I told them my experiences, told them to look in the mirror and think about what they really want, and then fight hard to get it,'' Pérez told El Nuevo Herald by phone from the Canary Islands.
It was easy for him to dial the Welcome hostel.
That's the same place where he stayed after he arrived in Madrid.
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