President Barack Obama Reverses Cuban Immigration Policy, Continues Late Term Legacy Initiative

Yesterday, the White House announced that President Obama, in what appears to be a rigorous push by the outgoing Commander in Chief to exercise the powers of his office, would be repealing a decades-old immigration policy; one that specifically catered to Cuban refugees and was enacted by former President Bill Clinton in 1995. Clinton’s “wet foot, dry foot” policy, as it was notoriously named, basically stated that any Cuban refugee who reached American land was automatically granted protection from extradition and allowed to apply for legal U.S. status. On the other hand, under Clinton’s policy, those Cuban refugees captured at sea could be deported.

Though surprising to some, this looks to be in line with Obama’s historic 2014 move to normalize relations with Cuba and its de facto leader, Raul Castro, ending a half century’s worth of sanctions-based tension and conflict between the Communist state and its former dictator, Fidel Castro. The mindset of Obama’s administration is, if relations are to normalize, the United States would logically no longer be obligated to offer sanctuary to Cubans attempting to flee the island.

Outgoing President Barack Obama has been extremely busy since Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, and pundits are likening it to an attempt by a late term, “lame duck” president to shore up his legacy against the whirlwind of an incoming opposition party candidate who, backed by a majority in both the House and Senate, seeks to erase the policies of his predecessor.

Obama’s last-minute legacy initiatives are poetically reminiscent of his recent six-year struggle in the White House, as opposition from a Republican-controlled Congress characterized the better part of his two-term presidency with little domestic power at all, but Veto itself. Trapped across the chasm of the Washington D.C. partisan divide he had failed to bridge, Barack focused his sight on what little matters he could influence, including foreign policy and historical preservation. He designated millions of acres to National Parks, shifted economic policy from Europe to Asia, and attempted to normalize relations with long-time enemies like Iran and Cuba.

As a microcosm of his tenure, his actions have been personified in recent weeks by pardons or commutations of nonviolent offenders’ sentences, and the use of Executive Orders. Obama claimed the legal standing to invoke a small provision of an ages old piece of legislation, 1953’s Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and use it to permanently ban offshore oil drilling from the Arctic to the southern Atlantic coast of the United States. The move was controversial, and Coral Davenport of The NY Times reported the following in December.

“While some presidents have used that law to temporarily protect smaller portions of federal waters, Mr. Obama’s declaration of a permanent drilling ban on portions of the ocean floor from Virginia to Maine and along much of Alaska’s coast is breaking new ground. The declaration’s fate will almost certainly be decided by the federal courts.”

As we flash forward to yesterday’s surprise announcement by the White House that Cubans will no longer be granted automatic asylum, we must understand that had the democrats been able to win the White House in 2016, Obama’s last month of office would have looked much different by contrast. Knowing that an incoming Hillary Clinton was eager to carry on the blueprint of his legacy, Obama would have been passing the torch with many of these initiatives, rather than feeling so pressed for time and desperate for executive authority. Instead of hastily pushing to save policy plans, he may have been saying something like, “Here, Hillary, here’s what I think you could do easily in the first year’, as he handed her the keys.

However, this reversal of Cuban immigration policy appears to be more than a last minute grasping at straws, as Reuters reported today.

“The United States and Cuba spent several months negotiating the change, including an agreement from Cuba to allow those turned away from the United States to return. With this change we will continue to welcome Cubans as we welcome immigrants from other nations, consistent with our laws,” Obama said in a statement.

With only a week left under oath, one can assume that President Obama intends to use every last moment of his position in an attempt to cement the chapters of his legacy.

[Featured Image By Susan Walsh/AP Images/Cropped and Resized]