Cuban Jose Enrique Manreza, who sold his house and belongings to embark on a epic journey by plane, bus and on foot in pursuit of the American dream, is now stranded in a Mexican border town after Washington abruptly ended a lenient immigration policy.
US President Barack Obama on Thursday repealed a measure granting automatic residency to virtually every Cuban who arrived in the US, whether or not they had visas, ending a long-standing exception to US policy.
The end of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed any Cuban who reached US soil to stay, but returned any picked up at sea, took effect immediately.
“Imagine how I feel, after I spent six days and six nights running through rivers and jungles in the humidity,” said Manreza, at a refugee shelter in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula, where he heard the news, along with 30 other Cubans.
Manreza estimated he had spent about US$10,000 on his trip, including a flight to French Guiana, guides through South America and bribes to fend off aggressors who tried to abuse his daughter on the journey.
“I had to give them lots and lots of money, and now this happens,” said Manreza, who ran a soda warehouse in Havana, Cuba, before he left in December.
He said he was deciding whether to return to Cuba, broke, or seek asylum in Mexico.
Anticipating the end of the policy, Cuban immigration has surged since the 2014 normalization and White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said about 40,000 Cubans arrived in the US in 2015 and about 54,000 last year.
Numbers have been lower in recent months, but Cubans en route in Panama said hundreds more were behind them in the treacherous jungles of the Darien Gap.
“There are people with children, pregnant women, elderly people,” said Gabriel Alejandro Marin, part of a group of 50 in Panama City. “We have all sold everything for this.”
Thousands of Cubans gathered in Costa Rica and Panama last year as Central American countries struggled to cope with the influx. El Salvador on Thursday welcomed the new policy, saying all immigrants should be treated equally.
Honduras, a source of thousands of immigrants to the US each year, despite no Cuban-style special treatment, said it was waiting to see if the policy led to fewer Cubans traveling.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no immediate comment.
Manreza said his wife, a nurse, was working in Venezuela as part of a Cuban oil-for-doctors program.
Obama also rolled back a “medical parole” program dating back to 2006 that allowed Cuban doctors working in third countries to move to the US simply by walking into a US embassy.
“She cried when I called her,” Manreza said, without saying whether his wife had intended to defect under the program.
Ivan Diaz, 45, a health administrator said the decision had left him in shock.
“It’s taken the oxygen from me,” he said.
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