Economics – dwkcommentaries

U.S. High-Tech Layoffs Threaten Immigrants with Temporary Visas

Many immigrant workers, primarily Indian nationals, are in the U.S. on temporary visas and after being laid off, their visas will expire after 60 days and subject them to deportation unless they are rehired. Many of these immigrants are highly skilled and educated, and some have been here for years, and some for decades. As of 2019, there were almost 600,000 of these immigrants in the U.S. [1]

These layoffs are part of the U.S. tech sector’s recent spiraling downward with major companies like Google, Meta and Amazon firing workers by the thousands.

Some advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers have been lobbying the Departments of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to extend the length of time that high-tech visa holders can remain in the country after losing their jobs, from 60 to 120 days.

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[1] Werner, High-skilled visa-holders at risk of deportation amid tech layoffs, Wash. Post (Feb. 24, 2023)

Other States Join Iowa in Encouraging Immigration To Combat Aging, Declining Populations

A prior post discussed the various ways the Iowa State Government was encouraging the resettlement of refugees and other immigrants in their state to combat its shortage of workers.[1]

Now the Republican governors of Indiana (Eric Holcomb)and Utah (Spencer Cox) have jointly voiced the same desire. They start their appeal as follows: “Indiana has about 220,000 open jobs right now and Utah has 107,000, according to the most recent federal data — more than 6 percent of all jobs in both states. With strong business and tax environments, we like our chances in the competition for job-seekers moving from other states. But they won’t be enough to fill all of those vacancies. We also need immigrants who are ready to work and help build strong communities.” (Emphasis added.)[2]

To meet that need these two governors call on Congress to enable states “to sponsor whatever immigrants serve the needs of their communities. . . . Rapidly declining birthrates and accelerating retirements across the United States mean that our states’ already wide job gaps will grow to crisis proportions without more [immigrants].”

Therefore, these two governors suggest that states be empowered to sponsor immigrants for resettlement “from a pool of new applicants from abroad and from the ranks of current asylum seekers [for refugee status].” They also recognize that there must be “rules to determine who can come in and how, and who can stay; unflinching enforcement of such rules; and some kind of review-and-repeat process to assure that the United States offers paths to citizenship based on our evolving needs. The rules must include a practical approach to illegal immigrants who came to this country as children. And enforcement must include firm control of all entry points.”

Conclusion

Governors Holcomb and Cox added that they believe other states will join this effort from comments they heard at last week’s National Governors Association meeting.

This is good news!

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[1] Iowa State Government Encouraging Refugee and Migrant Resettlement, dwkcommentaries.com (Feb. 3, 2023).

[2] Holcomb & Cox, To solve out national immigration crisis, let states sponsor immigrants, Wash. Post (Feb. 21, 2023).

Your Longevity Is Important for Many Reasons

Longevity or how long you will live has always been important in making many decisions about your future. But this blogger has never known until reading the Wall Street Journal article cited below that the American Academy of Actuaries and Society of Actuaries have calculated longevity factors based upon the assumption that everything goes well for the individual and upon the latest mortality data from the U.S. Social Security Administration.

That data has been compiled in the Actuaries Longevity Illustrator, which helps an individual see how long he or she might live. (This is different from life expectancy tables that have the average number of years someone will live from a given age.) [1]

The Illustrator is simple to use. You only enter your date of birth, your retirement age, your gender, whether or not you smoke and whether your general health is excellent, average or poor, which terms are not defined.

Examples of Excellent Health Males and Females

For example, an 84 year-old non-smoker male with excellent health has a 94% chance of living to age 85, 59% chance to age 90, 26% chance to age 95 and 7% to age 100.

An 83-year old female non-smoker with excellent health would have a 91% chance of living to age 85, 64% chance to age 90, 33% chance to age 95 and 12% chance to age 100.

Examples of Average Health Males and Females

An 84 year-old non-smoker male with average health would have a 92% chance of living to age 85, 51% chance to age 90, 18% chance to age 95 and 4% chance to age 100.

The 83 year-old non-smoker female with average health would have a 89% chance to reach age 85, 56% chance to age 90, 25% chance to age 95 and 7% chance to age 100.

Observations

Josh Zumbrun, the author of the Wall Street Journal article on this subject, says, “The good news [from these longevity statistics] is that many Americans live a lot longer than they expect. The bad news is that this often leads to financial regret as they realize, sometimes too late, that [earlier in life they made financial decisions that have not provided sufficient financial resources for these additional years].”

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[1] Zumbrun, You Might Live Longer Than You Think. Your Finances Might Not, W.S.J. (Feb. 10, 2023); Actuaries, Longevity Illustrator.

More Details on U.S. and Other Countries’ Worker Shortages

This blog already has discussed the current declining and aging populations of many countries, and their impact on employment in those countries. [1]

Here are some additional articles on these subjects.

Wall Street Journal Analysis [2]

“Employers in healthcare, education, leisure and hospitality and other services such as dry cleaning and automotive repair . . . [accounted] for 63% of all [recent U.S,] private-sector job gains. .. . In January alone, restaurants and bars added a seasonally adjusted 99,000 jobs. The healthcare industry grew by 58,000, and retailers added 30,000 jobs.”

This result is helped by “more workers . . .searching for jobs: bigger paychecks and benefits, diminishing fear of getting sick, and financial worries amid high inflation.” Also “more women are flowing back into the labor force, which could help service-sector employers fill positions that traditionally have been held by women.”

Increased U.S. Immigration [3]

Last year U.S. net immigration increased by about a million people, and the “foreign-born work force grew much more quickly than the U.S.-born work force.” This “helped power the job recoveries in leisure and hospitality and in construction, where immigrants make up a higher share of employment, and where there were bigger increases in wages and job vacancies.”

This employment result happened despite the inadequate staffing of the U.S. immigration agencies, resulting in huge delays in acting on asylum applications as well as those for green cards and work permits. “One of the few industries with unlimited immigrant visas is agriculture, where the number of guest worker visas “has risen by double-digit percentages over each of the last few years, reaching 371,000 in 2022.”

Difficulties in Raising Birth Rates [4]

Echoing the pessimism of Ross Douthat of the New York Times caused, in part, by China’s recent declining birth rate and population, other Time’s authors say, “History suggests that once a country crosses the threshold of negative population growth, there is little its government can do to reverse it. And as a country’s population grows more top-heavy, a smaller, younger generation bears the increasing costs of caring for a larger, older one. . . . That’s because the playbook for boosting national birthrates is a rather thin one. Most initiatives that encourage families to have more children are expensive, and the results are often limited. Options include cash incentives for having babies, generous parental leave policies and free or subsidized child care.”

This more recent Times article claims, “many young Chinese are not interested in having large families. Vastly more young Chinese people are enrolling in higher education, marrying later and having children later. Raised in single-child households, some have come to see small families as normal. But the bigger impediment to having a second or third child is financial, [and] many parents cite the high cost of housing and education as the main obstacle to having more children.”

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[1] See these posts to dwkcommentaries.com: Another Defining Challenge of the 21^st Century (Jan. 28, 2023); Skepticism About Douthat’s Defining Challenge of the 21^st Century (Jan. 30, 2023); Comment: Developments in Africa and Italy Accentuate Douthat’s Concerns (Jan. 31, 2023); Iowa State Government Encouraging Refugee and Migrant Resettlement (Feb. 3, 2023);Comment: National Worker Shortages in U.S. (Feb. 3, 2023); Economists Surprised by January’s New Jobs Data (Feb. 4, 2023); Sub-Saharan Africa Is ‘New Epicenter’ of Extremism, Says UN, (Feb. 8, 2023); Migrant Workers Being Paid Premium Wages in U.S. Tight Labor Market, (Feb. 8, 2023).

[2] Cambon & Smith, Mass Layoffs or Hiring Boom? What’s Actually Happening in the Jobs Market, W.S.J. (Feb. 9, 2023).

[3] DePills, Immigration Rebound Eases Shortage of Workers, Up to a Point, N.Y. Times (Feb. 6, 2023).

[4] Jacobs & Paris, Can China Reverse Its Population Decline? Just Ask Sweden, N.Y. Times (Feb. 9, 2023).

Sub-Saharan Africa Is ‘New Epicenter’ of Extremism, Says UN

On February 7 the U.N. Development Programme reported that searching for better jobs eclipses religious ideology as the main driver of recruitment to violent extremist groups in Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, 71% of 2,200 interviewees said the precipitating event for joining such groups was human rights abuse, often conducted by state security forces.[1]

According to an officer of the U.N. Programme, ““Sub-Saharan Africa has become the new global epicenter of violent extremism with 48% of global terrorism deaths in 2021. This surge not only adversely impacts lives, security and peace, but also threatens to reverse hard-won development gains for generations to come. Security-driven counter-terrorism responses are often costly and minimally effective, yet investments in preventive approaches to violent extremism are woefully inadequate. The social contract between states and citizens must be reinvigorated to tackle root causes of violent extremism.”

To counter and prevent violent extremism, “the report recommends greater investment in basic services including child welfare; education; quality livelihoods; and investing in young men and women. It also calls for scaling-up exit opportunities and investment in rehabilitation and community-based reintegration services.”

This U.N. report underscores New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s contention that a major challenge for the world this century is responding to the growing turbulent population of the African continent.[2]

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[1] Musambi (AP), Sub-Saharan Africa is ‘new epicenter’ of extremism, says UN, StarTribune (Feb. 7, 2023); Hope for better jobs eclipses religious ideology as main driver of recruitment to violent extremist groups in Sub-Saharan Africa, U.N. Dev. Prog. (Feb. 7, 2023); Journey to extremism in Africa: Pathways to recruitment and disengagement, U.N. Dev. Prog. (2020).

[2] Another Defining Challenge of the 21st Century, dwkcommentaries.com (Jan. 28, 2023); Skepticism About Douthat’s Defining Challenge of the 21^st Century, dwkcommentareis.com (Jan. 30, 2023).

Iowa State Government Encouraging Refugee and Migrant Resettlement

As a native Iowan who was born and raised in the State and as a supporter of refugees and immigrants, I was pleasantly surprised to learn from an article in the New York Times that Iowa’s state government has adopted and is implementing various programs to encourage these people’s resettlement in the State. [1] These conclusions were corroborated by that article and the preliminary research cited in this post.

The Iowa State Government has programs encouraging resettlement in the State by refugees and other migrants. The state’s “Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, and the state’s Department of Health and Human Services recently announced a program that supports refugees from around the world with a focus on Afghan people in particular. That includes providing grants to organizations that enhanced ‘community integration, English proficiency, digital literacy, banking and financial planning, transportation, health and wellness, services for older refugees and youth supports.” [2]

This effort is driven, in part, by Iowa’s need for more workers. “Iowa alone has over 75,000 job openings . . .[that] are depleting the state’s ability to meet growing manufacturing and service demands. Businesses are begging for workers at local economic development meetings. Employers are struggling particularly with shortages in key mid-skill industries, like health care, information and technology and tourism and hospitality.”

This article commends the following proposed immigration programs for Iowa:

Federal authorization of states to devise guest-worker programs under the auspices of the federal government (Department of Homeland Security) and state governments along the lines of a bill offered by U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (Rep., WI).
The U.S. and other countries could establish bilateral immigration agreements that “would allow U.S. employers to train workers to obtain valuable skills . . . either in the United States or abroad, and then workers could come to the U.S. states that need them.”
Like the State of Washington, revise Iowa’s licensing laws to create a limited license for foreign medical graduates.

One of the authors of this article is Iowan David Oman, who was chief of staff for Iowa Republican governors Robert D. Ray (1969-83) and Terry Branstad (1983-99 & 2011-17) as well as Chair of the Iowa Republican Party (1995-1993) and the 1998 Republican gubernatorial candidate for Iowa . Other authors are Iowan Robert Leonard, the news director of two Iowa radio stations, and Kristie DePena, the vice president for policy and the director of immigration policy at the Niskanen Center in Washington, D.C. and the holder of a J.D. degree from the University of Iowa College of Law.[3]

Niskanen Center[4]

The Niskanen Center asserts that it believes, “Immigration policy is not just about how we treat others; it has direct implications for Americans. Done well, immigration policy reform can protect family values, strengthen national security, reduce unemployment, spur innovation, stimulate competition, increase public safety, enhance the U.S. economy, reinforce international relations, and help those most in need. Evidence consistently shows that innovation and entrepreneurship are good for America. Supporting legal immigration through refugee resettlement programs like DACA, green cards, and more is fundamental to our success as a nation; and our humanitarian policies are a cornerstone of our nation. But, perhaps most importantly, we believe that with very few exceptions, the immigrants coming to America do so for the right reasons, and we benefit by welcoming them.” More specifically, the Center focuses on the following areas of U.S. immigration policy reform:

“Encouraging the involvement of Americans in refugee sponsorship and resettlement and reforming our asylum system to expand capacity and enhance processing.”
“Creating and enhancing opportunities for innovation and frontier growth in America through legalization, a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, and reformed options to work in the U.S.”
“Enhancing domestic and international security and diplomacy through soft power and national security pathways.”
“Repairing our immigration adjudication system by creating independent courts and reforming the criminalization and prosecution of immigrants in the states.”
“Encouraging the involvement of Americans in refugee sponsorship and resettlement and reforming our asylum system to expand capacity and enhance processing.”
“Creating and enhancing opportunities for innovation and frontier growth in America through legalization, a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, and reformed options to work in the U.S.”
“Enhancing domestic and international security and diplomacy through soft power and national security pathways.”
“Repairing our immigration adjudication system by creating independent courts and reforming the criminalization and prosecution of immigrants in the states.”
“Encouraging the involvement of Americans in refugee sponsorship and resettlement and reforming our asylum system to expand capacity and enhance processing.”
“Creating and enhancing opportunities for innovation and frontier growth in America through legalization, a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, and reformed options to work in the U.S.”

Reactions

Congratulations to the government of the State of Iowa for this strong support for refugees and other immigrants.

However, the authors of this article fail to recognize the powerful resistance to immigration efforts in the U.S. Senate by Iowa’s senior U.S. Senator, Republican Charles Grassley. For example, in the last session of Congress Grassley blocked the passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would have prevented Afghan evacuees in the U.S. from being stranded without legal residency status when their humanitarian paroles expire in August 2023 and would have allowed them to apply for U.S. citizenship. [5]

The citizens of Iowa need to press Grassley to reverse course and immediately press for passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act and to take other steps to encourage resettlement of immigrants in the State.

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[1] Over 75,000 Job Openings in Iowa Alone. Millions of Refugees Seeking Work. Make the Connection, N.Y. Times (Feb.2, 2023)..

[2] See n.1; Iowa HHS Expands Support for Refugees; Announces RFP to provide wraparound supports, and other key initiatives (Jan. 6, 2023); Iowa Dep’t of Health & Human Resources, Iowa HHS Expands Support for Refugees; (Jan. 6, 2023); Iowa Dep’t of Health & Human Resources; Afghanistan Resources; Iowa Dep’t of Health & Human Resources, Ukraine Resources; Iowa Dep’t of Health & Human Resources, Venezuelan Resources; Iowa Dep’t of Health & Human Resources, History of the Bureau of Refugee Services; Iowa Dep’t of Health & Human Resources, Frequently Asked Questions.

[3] David Oman, Iowa Capital Dispatch.

[4] Niskanen Center, Our Mission; Niskanen Center, Immigration: What We Believe; Niskanen Center Annual Report 2022.

[5] Amiri (AP), Afghan refugees’ status uncertain after U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley blocks residency bill, Des Moines Register (Dec. 30, 2022). See also these posts to dwkcommentaries.com: Need To Prod Congress To Enact the Afghan Adjustment Act (Dec. 17, 2022); Apparent Failure To Enact Bipartisan Immigration Bills (Dec. 18, 2022); Comment: Retired U.S. Military Leaders Support Afghan Adjustment Act (Dec. 19, 2022); Congress Fails To Adopt Important Immigration Legislation (Dec. 28, 2022); Comment: Other Reactions to Failure To Adopt Immigration Legislation (Dec.31, 2022).

Skepticism About Douthat’s Defining Challenge of the 21st Century

As discussed in a prior post, New York Times’ columnist Ross Douthat argues that the defining challenge of the 21^st century is declining population in many of the world’s countries. [1]

Skepticism about this contention has been voiced by Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvin, even though he does not cite Douthat’s article.[2]

While conceding that “a shrinking global population . . . poses unprecedented challenges for humanity,” Feng says, “alarmist warnings are often simplistic and premature” and “can lead to hasty policy and human tragedy.”

Instead Weng says, “The population declines seen today in some countries have come about largely as a happy story of greater longevity and freedom. Fertility rate worldwide dropped from more than five births per woman in the early 1960s to 2.3 in 2020. Credit greater investment in child and maternal health everywhere: A mother who successfully brings her child to term and an infant who survives to childhood lower birthrates because parents often don’t feel the need to try again. Greater availability of free or affordable contraception has also reduced unwanted births.”

Moreover, Feng asserts, “additional “women in the work force is a recipe for even greater productivity and prosperity and could help ease labor concerns among falling populations. More women than ever are rising to leadership positions in business, media and politics.”

“Compared with a half-century ago, people in many countries are richer, healthier and better educated and women are more empowered. “ This is associated with “[a]verage world life expectancy . . . [having] increased from 51 years in 1960 to 73 in 2019, and even more so in China, from 51 in 1962 to 78 in 2019. Increases of that magnitude reshape lives and open up opportunities unimaginable when life spans were shorter.”

“Fewer people on the planet, of course, may reduce humanity’s ecological footprint and competition for finite resources. There could even be greater peace as governments are forced to choose between spending on military equipment or on pensions. And as rich nations come to rely more on immigrants from poorer countries, those migrants gain greater access to the global prosperity currently concentrated in the developed world.”

Feng, however, concedes, “This new demography brings new challenges, including the need to offer quality and affordable child care, make college education more affordable and equitable, provide guaranteed minimum income and make societies more gender equal. Governments should abandon the mindless pursuit of economic growth in favor of well-being for citizens.”

Conclusion

Whose side are you on? Douthat or Feng?

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[1] Douthat, Five Rules for an Aging World, N.Y. Times (Jan. 21, 2023); Another Defining Challenge of the 21^st Century, dwkcommentaries.com (Jan. 25, 2023).

[2] Feng, The Alternative, Optimistic Story of Population Decline, N.Y. Times (Jan. 30, 2033).

Another Defining Challenge of the 21st Century

Ross Douthat, a New York Times columnist, asserts that at least one of the defining challenges of the current century is “the birth dearth, the population bust, the old age of the world.”[1]

This assertion is based, he says, upon “various forces, the Covid crisis especially, [that] have pushed birthrates lower faster, bringing the old-age era forward rapidly.” Additional support for this thesis, he says, is China’s recent announcement that “its population declined for the first time since the Great Leap Forward, over 60 years ago.” And “variations on that shadow lie over most rich and many middle-income nations now—threatening general sclerosis, and a zero-sum struggle between a swollen retired generation, and the over-burdened young.”

Douthat then asserts the following “Rules for an Aging World:”

“The rich world will need redistribution back from old to young.” “[R]eform [of] old-age entitlements will become ever more essential and correct — so long as the savings can be used to make it easier for young people to start a family, open a business, own a home. And countries that find a way to make this transfer successfully will end up far ahead of those that just sink into gerontocracy.”
“The big bottlenecks [of the new A.I. technology] aren’t always in invention itself: they’re in testing, infrastructure, deployment, regulatory hurdles.”
“Ground warfare will run up against population limits [as we see today in the Russia-Ukraine war and the tensions over Taiwan].”
A “little extra youth and vitality will go a long way.” For example, “countries that manage to keep or boost their birthrates close to replacement level will have a long-term edge over countries that plunge toward . . .half-replacement-level fertility.” The same “will be true within societies as well.”
A major challenge in this new age will be the international response to the projections that Africa’s population will “reach 2.5 billion by 2050 and [4.0] billion by 2100. . . .The balance between successful assimilation and destabilization and backlash [of the African diaspora] ….will help decide whether the age of demographic decline ends in revitalization or collapse.”

Reactions

Wow!, This is a new and frightening projection of the next 80 years for all of us on planet Earth today! We certainly have seen these challenges in states in the Middle West like Minnesota, Iowa, the Dakotas and Nebraska, and this blog has advocated for increased immigration in these states to counteract aging and declining populations. Nearly everyone in the U.S. today and in the future should join me in a chorus, “I am a proud descendant of immigrants!!”

At the end of the Douthat column are many comments from readers. Here are a few of those comments:

Geoff Burrell of Western Australia said, “Aged 72 I tend to agree that longevity is currently a problem but hasn’t ‘age at dying’ decreased in western countries due to the pandemic, a trend that may continue for many decades as new Covid variants and climate change induced pandemics come along. The article also characterizes elderly people as a ‘burden’ but doesn’t recognize the substantial portion of any population’s wealth they hold, much of it, ironically, used to support younger family members. Immigration is also able to overcome most of the deficits faced by a population with an ageing society, though that requires a good immigration policy to ensure the country gets what it wants.”
Edwin, an American MD in Africa, thanks Douthat “for his recognition of the importance of Africa. Most of Africa’s low- and middle-income countries have 50% or more of their population under the age of 17 years. The education, health and stability of Africa’s children and adolescents is critically important, and will be a major determinant of global security in the 21st Century…” He adds, “Northern Nigeria, where I spend much of my effort, now has a huge number of people living in extreme poverty. Yet the young people in this area of Africa’s most populous nation have much promise. We in the West must prioritize the health, education and security of places like northern Nigeria.”
Nicholas Mellen of Louisville, KY agrees with Edwin. “An aging population? Allow migrants in. They’re young healthy and ambitious. The most productive and successful Americans are usually within the first 3 generations; these migrants will do the same: from Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, Russia, China, Afghanistan to name a few. You have to be brave, persistent, hopeful and lucky to survive the journey. So there’s how you rejuvenate an aging nation.”
Patrick Bohlen of Orlando, IL, says, “Allowing for more immigration is an obvious top 3 solution that would solve many of the issues brought about by the demographic shift. It will also be unavoidable with climited migration. . . . We don’t need higher birth rates, but we do need sane immigration policies that help address both the demographic and climate crises.”
Anne F of New York, concludes her comment, “We don’t need to be concerned about population decline as it is part of a long-term picture of sustainable human existence. Climate needs to be the focus.”

Surprising news relating to this subject was the recent release of information about the results of the 2021 Gallup World Poll based on detailed interviews with nearly 127,000 adults in 122 countries. “Globally, people’s desire to move reached its highest point in a decade, but interest in moving to the U.S. plunged. When asked where in the world they would want to migrate, 1 in 5 potential migrants — or about 18% — named the U.S. as their desired future residence. The new numbers marked a historic decline that began in 2017, when just 17% — the lowest rate ever recorded — said they’d want to move to the U.S. In previous years, the U.S. has polled between 20% and 24%.”[2]

The managing editor of this World Poll and one of the report’s authors, Julie Ray, attributed the decline in foreigners desire to relocate to the U.S. to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies of the Trump Administration. A Palestinian man, for example, came to the U.S. for graduate study because he thought the U.S. offered “infinite opportunities, but soon he saw a U.S. “workaholicculture,” a lack of fulfillment and evaluating a person’s value by their job status.

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[1] Douthat, Five Rules for an Aging World, N.Y. Times (Jan. 22, 2023).

[2] Abdeleziz, Fewer People Are Interested in Migrating to The U.S. Than Ever Before. Here’s Why, HuffPost (Jan. 26, 2023); Pugliese & Ray, Nearly 900 Million Worldwide Wanted to Migrate in 2021, gallup.com (Jan. 24, 2023).

U.S. Announces $2 Million Grant to Cuba for Hurricane Ian Relief

On October 18, the U.S. State Department announced that the U.S. through the U.S. Agency for International Development will be providing $2 million of emergency relief for those in Cuba suffering from Hurricane Ian.[1]

Said the State Department, the U.S. “will work with trusted, independent organizations operating in the country who have a long presence in hurricane-affected communities. We are currently reviewing applications from organizations such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to provide this assistance.”

The statement added, “We stand with the Cuban people as they work to recover from this disaster. The United States will continue to monitor and assess humanitarian needs in coordination with our trusted partners and the international community, and we will continue to seek ways to provide meaningful support to the Cuban people, consistent with U.S. laws and regulations.”

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez immediately expressed appreciation for this grant. He said on twitter, this aid would “contribute to our recovery efforts and support [for] those affected by the ravages” of the storm.

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[1] U.S. State Department, Press Statement: U.S. Support for Hurricane Ian Recovery Efforts in Cuba (Oct. 18, 2022); DeYoung, U.S. will provide $2 million of hurricane aid in Cuba, Wash. Post (Oct. 18, 2020). See also Hurricane-Damaged Cuba Needs Immediate U.S. Recovery Help, dwkcommentaries.com (Oct. 2. 2022); Cuban Government Asks for U.S. Aid in Responding to Hurricane Ian Damages While Cubans Protest Over Continued Power Outages, dwkcommentaries.com (Oct.4, 2022); Comment: Still Waiting for U.S. Response to Cuban Request for Hurricane Aid, dwkcommentaries.com (Oct. 6, 2022).

Cuban Government Asks for U.S. Aid in Responding to Hurricane Ian Damages While Cubans Protest Over Continued Power Outages

As reported in a prior post, Hurricane Ian on September 27 stroke the western portion of the island of Cuba, and by the next day the entire island’s electricity was out.

Cuba Requests U.S. Aid for Restoring Electricity[1]

According to the Wall Street Journal on September 30 the Cuban government requested the U.S. government to provide emergency aid for responding to the damages caused on the island by Hurricane Ian. No exact amount of aid was specified, and a State Department spokesman reportedly told the Journal that it continues to communicate with the Cuban government regarding the humanitarian and environmental consequences of this hurricane and last August’s fire at the oil storage depot in Matanzas. That spokesman said, “We are evaluating ways in which we can continue to support the Cuban people, consistent with U.S. laws and regulations.”

On October 2, the Cuban Foreign Ministry on its Twitter account stated, “The Governments of Cuba and the United States have exchanged information on the considerable damage and unfortunate losses caused by Hurricane Ian in both countries.” But there was no mention of any Cuban request for assistance or any U.S. responses.

Complicating the U.S. providing any aid to Cuba for hurricane-damages is the need for the U.S. to address the immense Hurricane Ian damages in Florida, the Carolinas and Puerto Rico.

“If Cuba asks for humanitarian aid and the U.S. gives it to them, that would be a real breakthrough,” says William LeoGrande, an expert on Cuba at American University in Washington.

Cuban Protests Lack of Electricity[2]

In the meantime, many Cubans have gone to the streets in Havana, Matanzas, Cardenas and Holguin to protest continued lack of electricity and to demand the government restore electricity and provide aid to areas ravaged by the hurricane. For the most part, these protests were calm. The police did not interfere. There were no arrests. Instead, the government sent officials and Communist Party members to talk with the protesters. And the government appeared to cut off the Internet and telecommunications networks across the country, possible to prevent news of the demonstrations from spreading and encouraging others to join.

However, there have been reports of police detention of some of these protesters.

Ted Henken, a Cuba expert and a professor at the City University of New York, said after last summer’s protests “people are out again because the government has been unable to address the root causes of the protests. The frustration has bled into the general population because it’s a scarcity of food, electricity, the basics. That has only been exacerbated by this horrible hurricane.”

Conclusion

If any reader has knowledge of the substance of any Cuba-U.S. communications on this subject, please provide a comment with that information to this post.

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[1] Salama & Cordoba, Cuba Makes Rare Request for U.S. Aid After Devastation From Hurricane Ian, W.S.J. (Sept. 30 & Oct. 1, 2022).; Cuba and the US maintain exchanges on the damage caused by Hurricane Ian, Granma (Oct. 2, 2022).

[2] Acosta & Lopez, Cuba’s power grid fails in wake of Hurricane Ian, leaving island without electricity, N.Y. Times (Sept. 27, 2022); Martinez, Cuba slowly starts restoring power after the entire island was blacked out, N.Y. Times (Sept. 28, 2022); Brown & Herrero, Cuba suffers total electrical outage as Hurricane Ian roars through, W.S.J. (Sept. 27 & 28, 2020); Acosta& Abi-Habib, Protests Erupt in Cuba Over Government Response to Hurricane Ian, N.Y. Times (Sept. 30, 2022); Cubans Protest Over Power Outage Caused by Hurricane Ian, N.Y. Times (Sept. 30, 2022); Cubans protest over power outages four days after Hurricane Ian, Guardian (Oct. 2, 2022); The Cuban regime accelerates its repressive machinery against the protests: disappearances, detainees and episodes of brutality, diario de cuba (Oct. 2, 2022);.