Speech #1000131544

Mr. Speaker. the Secretary of State announced today that the agreement between the United States and Cuba entered into on December 14. 1984. has been reinstated. This means that we can now resume the humanitarian task of allowing separated families to be reunited under our immigration law. as well as upholding our pledge to welcome longtime expolitical prisoners. It was in 1981. on a visit to Cuba with my colleagues. Congressmen GILMAN and GARCIA. that we broached the subject of immigration with Fidel Castroafter his 1980 action of sending some 127.000 Cubans to the United States from Mariel. As we learned later. along with the worthy family members who were allowed to embark from Mariel. he opened his jails and dumped thousands of criminals into boats to come to our shores. In retaliation. normal immigration relations between the United States and Cuba were halted when Castro refused to accept the return of the criminals he had sent to us. This meant that some 20.000 approved petitioners for immigration to the United States were unable to exercise their prerogative of continuing their immigrant visa processing. On this visit. my colleagues and I obtained Castros agreement that he would be willing to negotiate separately on only immigration matters. He tentatively agreed to accept those Marielitas who were excludable because of criminal activities. as well as those who came here but wanted to go back to Cuba. In return. our interest section in Havana. was to process normal immigration visas to qualified petitioners under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Also. arrangements were to be made to accept a number of expolitical prisoners who had been scheduled for admission as refugees. under a prior agreed upon ad hoc arrangement. These were the basic elements which led to the agreement in 1984 whereby Cuba was to take back some 2.700 excludables in return for our accepting immigrants and political prisoners. We all know that the agreement entered into on December 14. 1984. was abruptly and unilaterally broken off by Castro when Radio Marti went to the air in 1985. Negotiations have been going on since then to reinstate this agreement. which caught up innocent persons in intransigent attitudes of govemments.