Tighter migration rules in the United States also explain increasing flow to Brazil
12/15/2022
The combination of a deepening economic crisis in Cuba, increased political repression, and greater difficulties to immigrate to the United States has led more and more Cubans to bet on Brazil as a country to try a new life. Last year the number of refugee claims by Cubans hit a record high. Experts believe that this flow is unlikely to change in the short term since there are no signs of economic improvement on the island.
From January to October, 3,414 Cubans sought refuge in Brazil, up 690% year-over-year, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Justice’s International Migration Observatory (OBMigra). Never before have so many Cubans made such a claim. They have overtaken Angolans and are now the second nationality with the most requests, behind only Venezuelans (29,100). Cubans are mostly men, single, and aged between 18 and 39.
Tadeu Oliveira, OBMigra’s statistics coordinator, says that the increase of Cubans coming to Brazil has occurred through two main mechanisms: refugee claims and family reunification requests, for those who have parents, grandparents, and children here. He recalls that from January 2021 to October 2022, there were 3,912 refugee claims and 2,234 family reunification residence requests.
Those who request refugee status go through the Federal Police, receive their tax ID, and can start working while waiting for the request to be judged, which takes about three months. Those who request residence by family reunification can wait longer to get a residence permit, but they rely on a mechanism guaranteed by Brazilian regulations, argues Mr. Oliveira.
Family reunification requests were made possible by the More Doctors program, he explains. Before it was terminated by the Bolsonaro administration in November 2018, the program had 8,400 Cuban doctors, 46% of the staff, according to the Ministry of Health.
“In 2018, Cubans began to leave Brazil, but part of them ended up staying because they had already settled and started families. In 2020, with the pandemic and the borders closed, the flow decreased. In 2021, when things started to return to normal, there was an increase in refugee requests and residency applications,” he said.
According to Mr. Oliveira, 84% of the current requests are for a family reunification and 16% for refugee requests. He points to what he calls social networks as the main factor of attraction to Brazil. In other words: relatives and friends who are already in Brazil end up serving as an incentive for Cubans to leave the island. In this sense, the More Doctors program would have been the main factor, for having left the legacy of those who came to work here, got married, created families, settled down, and ended up bringing relatives.
The decisive factor, says Mr. Oliveira, would be Cuba’s political and economic problems, as well as higher costs to migrate to other countries, whether financial or logistical. Today, for example, it is much more expensive and riskier for a Cuban to try to go to the United States than to Brazil.
“The migratory projects [of those who want to migrate] always consider cost, benefit, and difficulty of entry. The tightening of migration rules by the Biden administration in the U.S. would be a major obstacle,” he adds.
Michael Bustamante, a professor at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami, said that Cuba is experiencing the worst economic crisis in 30 years, has been affected by the economic sanctions announced by the Trump administration in 2019, and the tourism sector — which accounts for about 10% of the country’s economy — has been hit hard by Covid-19. Not withstand the political landscape, marked by increasing tensions between society and the state and intensifying repression of anti-government protests.
“I would point to some variables that intersect and it’s hard to say it’s one thing or another that explains this massive exodus because all is happening at the same time,” said Mr. Bustamante. “There has been an intensification of U.S. sanctions since 2019, which the Biden administration have kept in place and have worsened the scenario. And the pandemic has been devastating to the tourism-dependent economy.”
He adds geopolitical issues, with allies like Venezuela, Russia, and China facing internal problems and increasingly diminishing the funds to help Cuba.
In the political sphere, Mr. Bustamante argues that the past two years have been of rising tensions on the island, which cannot be dissociated from the ongoing economic crisis. “We saw a rising civil society activism, and all of this culminated in July 2021 with the largest protests in Cuba in 60 years. The government repressed these protesters harshly,” he confirmed.
As a result, Cubans are feeling less hopeful, and more people are looking for an alternative to life on the island, he said. The U.S. is the first option, but other countries are also an option for those who want to leave Cuba. Mr. Bustamante recalls that from October 2021 to October 2022, more than 220,000 Cubans tried to enter the U.S. through the border with Mexico. “The number is a record in absolute terms, but also as a percentage of the population,” he says.
In 1980, the peak of the post-Cuban Revolution Cuban exodus, the population was 9,849,000 when 125,000 Cubans left the island through the port of Mariel for the U.S. or 1.26% of the total.
Today there are 11,320,000 on the island and 220,000 who tried to enter through the southern U.S. border between October 2021 and October 2022. This number corresponds to 1.94% of the Cuban population.
“The Cuban’s dream is to go to the U.S., but nobody wants to take the risk,” says M. O. R., a 30-year-old Cuban woman in Brazil for almost four months. “The route to migrate to America has become very dangerous and expensive. The option of coming to Brazil through Guyana came up because it doesn’t require a visa from us.”
M. O. R. worked as a civil engineer in the tourist hub of Holguín, 735 kilometers south of Havana, earning 2,000 Cuban pesos a month — or 11 MLC (“moneda libremente convertible”), which has parity with the U.S. dollar — and says the situation, which was already difficult, got much worse after the pandemic. “The prices of basic items went up a lot, mainly because of the shortage of the products, to the point that it was no longer possible to buy them,” she said, citing that a shampoo costs up to $4 and a carton with 30 eggs costs $5.5.
“On the other hand, the energy situation is precarious. All the thermoelectric plants collapsed, and we had only eight hours of electricity per day. Keeping a refrigerator, for example, was impossible,” she said.
In her view, the current crisis is the worst she has ever experienced in her country, which explains why many young people are leaving the island. “Most of them don’t see a future in Cuba. The possibilities are increasingly scarce, so, those who can leave, leave,” she explained.
The Cuban engineer came to Brazil with her husband, 37, who is also an engineer. They took out a loan with a relative who lives in Miami to pay the travel costs to get here. It took each of them $7,000 to get to Brazil, from a plane from Havana to Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, and coyotes that guide them until they cross the border with Roraima, the main port of entry for Cubans in Brazil today.
She lives in Tremembé, in the northern part of São Paulo, where she pays R$800 in rent for an apartment. She works at a store in the Pátio Paulista shopping center, where she earns R$1,400 plus transportation and meal vouchers. Her husband has not yet found a job.
Dentist Andrés Flores (fictitious name), 24, decided to leave Havana 10 months after graduating. With a salary of $22, it took him two years to save $2,000 so he could migrate here. He says that migrating to the United States would cost him $10,000.
He flew to Guyana and from there came by land to Brazil. He entered through Roraima 40 days ago and came by bus to São Paulo. He looked for a job in Sorocaba, but ended up staying in Jundiaí, where he has a Cuban friend.
He works selling clothes in a neighborhood store, where he earns about R$1,400 per month. He hopes soon to get a formal job that will allow him to earn R$1,800 plus benefits. In the near future, he wants to work as a dentist. “I think so many years of study in Cuba have to serve some purpose,” he said.
He left his father, mother, siblings, and grandparents in his country because he does not see any perspectives and because in Cuba “there is a dictatorship.” “Covid-19 affected the whole world but in Cuba, things pile up, amid so much poverty, misery, and hardship. Cubans are leaving the island in any way they can,” he said, adding that he used to buy clothes from Panama and resell them in Cuba to supplement the $22 earned per month as a dentist.
R.H.R., 29, left Havana three months ago because she reached her limit. “Cuba has had several special periods, but this is the worst,” she says, referring to the years between the collapse of the Soviet Union and Hugo Chávez coming to power in Venezuela when Cuba stopped receiving foreign aid. “There is no food, no medicine, no money, no work. Food is disappearing, and the prices rising. So Cubans are going to any country.”
She decided to come to Brazil because her mother had been here for four years, after having lived in Uruguay. Today she lives in Miami.
Despite the long lines after hours to get government-subsidized food in Cuba, she says that her family did not have enough to eat. “Many times, I would get in line at 3 a.m. to get food, but the government warehouses were empty,” she said.
Without a job or money, she decided to migrate with her 19-year-old brother and oldest son, age 10. She plans to bring her 5-year-old son but depends on having a job to start saving money. “I’m still looking for work, but I found out I was pregnant when I got here. That made everything more complicated and now I have an even harder time getting a job,” she says.
In the short and medium term, the prospect is that the largest Cuban exodus in history will continue, says Mr. Bustamante.
“I don’t see any signs of economic recovery in Cuba. And the internal political equation is still very difficult. Hundreds of people are in jail for having participated in protests against the government a year ago,” he recalls. “And this is just a reflection of a not very hopeful political environment, which is contributing to more and more people wanting to immigrate.”
*By Marsílea Gombata, Álvaro Fagundes — São Paulo
Source: Valor International