Reversing a Trump-era policy that required applicants to travel to Guyana, the Biden Administration announced that it will restart processing visa applications in Cuba instead of requiring Cubans to go to a US embassy overseas, CBS News reports.
To further its xenophobic policy of barring entry into the United States to anyone who doesn’t come from Europe (or who doesn’t have millions of dollars they’ll contribute to Republican causes), the Trump administration required Cubans seeking to leave the island nation to go to a US embassy in a mainland country, something that poor Cubans could not afford to do. This included the need to go to Guyana, in South America, for interviews.
President Joe Biden has scrapped all the hurdles put in place for Cubans to help facilitate the Cuban Family Reunification Parole program, started by the GW Bush administration in 2007 and carried on with Obama, that expedites visa applications for people who have family in the United States.
By allowing Cubans to apply for visas in Cuba, the administration aims at reducing the number of Cubans illegally crossing the southern border from Mexico. Immigration and border patrol officials say officers have encountered 175,000 Cubans illegally crossing the border so far in 2022. This compares to just 5,500 Cubans interdicted on the sea from the beginning of the year through August 2022.