PANAMA CITY: “Obama has screwed all Cubans,” Yadiel Cruz, a Cuban in Panama bitterly told AFP Thursday upon learning the US president has suddenly made it tougher for migrants like him to get into America.
The 33-year-old summed up what many compatriots were feeling as they digested the news in a Catholic shelter in Panama’s capital, a waypoint on their overland trek to the United States.
But, he declared, “for me, I’m not going back.”
Around him, dozens of other Cubans expressed sadness or anger.
Much of the fury was directed personally at US President Barack Obama for announcing that he has scrapped, with immediate effect, a 1995 policy that had given near-automatic entry to the US to Cubans who set foot on American soil, regardless of their visa status.
Now, like those who attempted to cross by water, they could face deportation back to Cuba unless they convince US officials they were afraid of being persecuted or had valid humanitarian reasons to be let in.
The move, made just days before Obama leaves office and hands the reins over to Donald Trump, known for his anti-immigration stance, rattled nerves, sparked frustration and evoked tears here.
– Obama has ‘hurt us’ –
“We feel sadness because we are all coming with a dream that comes from pain, hunger and a lot of work to get this far,” said Lorena Pena, a woman four months pregnant who left Cuba with her husband and four-year-old daughter.
Obama, she said, “screwed up, because what he’s done is hurt us — so he really isn’t as good as everyone says.”
Ulises Ferrer, a carpenter from Havana, said: “We don’t know what we’re going to do now. But what we’re certain of is that we’re not going back to Cuba unless we’re dead.”
The shelter they were in, a simple set-up run by the Caritas charity and featuring just one bathroom, is in the Ancon neighborhood of Panama City.
It was established months ago to accommodate some of the stream of Cuban migrants who had been passing through Central America on their way to Mexico and then to the United States.
The “Wet foot, Dry foot” policy Obama scrapped had meant that many of them felt they were on their way to a new life in America, once they reached the border.
Their destination hasn’t changed. But now the reception and easy access they had hoped for is less likely.
If they are accepted into the United States, though, a 1966 law, the Cuban Adjustment Act, is still valid and offers them a fast-track to residency and legal employment.
– Arduous trek –
The Cubans in Panama were on an overland route that has already been used by tens of thousands of others.
The number of migrants from their Communist-ruled island spiked in 2015 and 2016, after Washington and Havana agreed to a thaw in their long hostile relations.
Many of those fleeing feared exactly what came to pass Thursday: that the rapprochement would see the door close on Cuban migrants being given automatic US entry and residency.
The wave of Cubans, along with a decision by Nicaragua to close its border to them, created a backlog in Panama and Costa Rica that prompted both countries last year to try to shut out arriving Cubans.
– Waiting for Trump –
But while numbers have dropped, the flow hasn’t ceased. Many Cubans coming up from South America now pass through the Darien Gap — an inhospitable, swampy, snake-infested stretch of jungle dividing Panama from Colombia.
“We are thousands of Cubans who have crossed through the middle of the jungle, rivers and dangers,” said Yanisel Wilson, a 20-year-old who crossed through the Darien gap two days earlier.
Getting to even that point has meant running a gauntlet of thieving police officers, gangs and money-sucking people-smugglers along the way.
“I’m going to wait a few days to watch the news and see what gets decided. Here we will wait for Donald Trump to take over and see if he will help us,” Wilson said.
The ordeals the Cuban migrants have gone through speak to their unwavering determination to reach America, regardless of Obama’s policy change.
“Where can we go?” asked one Cuban, Julio Hernandez. “We can’t go back, nor go on. It’s like we’re in a stranded boat and don’t know what to do.”
