337. Cuba Rejects U.S. Wet-Foot Dry-Foot Policy Before UN

Cuban refuges picked up at sea

By Radio Cadena Agramonte, May 21, 2011

Havana, Cuba, May 21.- The Cuban deputy representative to the United Nations, Rodolfo Benitez, rejected the Cuban Adjustment Act enforced in the United States and described it as a despicable disdain for life as it encourages illegal immigration from the island to the U.S. 

While speaking on Thursday, Benitez stressed that the law, known as wet-feet, dry-feet policy, is the only one of its type on the world offering privileges to the Cubans who reach the U.S. illegally, something that is not available for immigrants from other countries. Benitez made the statement at a session of the U.N. General Assembly about migration and development.


"In every part of the world, there will always be people risking their lives to immigrate illegally, but encouraging people to do so can never be justified." said Benitez, who also criticized the brain drain as an increasing draining of human resources. Benitez said countries from Africa, the Caribbean and Central America have lost more than 30 percent of their skilled population, and nearly a third of all the scientists coming from Third World countries are not working in their native nations, while more than 50 percent of those who travel for a doctorate in the U.S., Canada or Europe do not return to their homelands.

In the case of Cuba, the U.S. government is applying a policy to attract doctors and other public health specialists participating in international collaboration programs in different countries.In a general sense, Benitez said the structural causes of international immigration are underdevelopment, poverty and social exclusion.