Cuba’s Low Birth Rate, Increasing Emigration and Declining Population

Cuba is facing three demographic challenges: low birth rate, increasing emigration and declining and aging population. Underlying all of these are poor economic conditions on the island.

Low Birth Rate[1]

Cuba “has experienced a progressive decline in its birth figures since the beginning of this century {in 2000]. . . [In] 2000 the number of people born on the island stood at 143,528, and in 2018 the figure had dropped to 116,333…. This data ranks Cuba as one of the countries in the world with the lowest gross birth rates: 10.4 per thousand (compared to the 33.4 per thousand registered in 1965).”

Moreover, in 2019, “ infant mortality increased to 5.0 deaths per 1,000 live births.” For preschoolers (between one and four years), the mortality rate . . . also increased from 3.0 to 3.5 per 10,000. The main causes were accidents, acute respiratory infections and malignant tumors.” In addition, Cuba has one of the highest abortion rates: 72.8 for every 100 births.

“it is clear to all that these birth trends are owing to a wide range of very heterogeneous factors and causes, but the really important thing is that it has very specific consequences, especially financial and economic. In the specific case of Cuba the low birth rate is compounded by an increase in life expectancy, at 78.4 years, which represents a demographic time bomb for any country while representing a massive challenge to the financial sustainability of an economy based on a model like Castroist Cuba’s, in which everything depends on the State.”

This data can be explained, in part, by “the current economic situation (the average monthly salary barely reaches $30)” and the inability to accumulate wealth.” In addition, “the challenges that people face, especially women, regarding work, finances, and the raising of children. . . . In short, the social and economic conditions racking Cuban society are the main damper on birth rates.”

“The Communist authorities have refused to realize that in order to solve the birth-rate problem in Cuba, existing compensatory and allocative policies do not work.” Instead, “policies should be aimed at effectively promoting economic growth, prosperity, higher standards of living for all Cubans, the accumulation of capital and wealth, savings and investment.” In short, “the Communist authorities have refused to realize that in order to solve the birth rate problem in Cuba, existing compensatory and allocative policies do not work. In Cuba, to date, adequate policies have not been implemented to counteract the trends observed.”

“Policies should be aimed at effectively promoting economic growth, prosperity, higher standards of living for all Cubans, the accumulation of capital and wealth, savings and investment.”

Increasing Emigration[2]

Lisette Poole, who has Cuban heritage, but was born and raised in the U.S., decided to live in Cuba after the December 2014 announcement of the two countries’ move towards  normalization of relations. However, in May 2016, she decided to return to the U.S. after she had observed that “most [Cubans] were struggling to get by and felt frustrated” and that “neither education nor employment can guarantee a living wage.” This situation became even worse with the Trump Administration’s sanctions and reduced support from reeling Venezuela.

She left with a Cuban woman who hoped to arrive at the U.S. while the U.S. “wet foot/dry foot” policy that would allow them to enter the U.S. on foot was still in effect. They first flew from Cuba to Georgetown, Guyana; then they went by canoe to Brazil, then through Peru to Colombia. The next stage was on a fishing boat to the Darien Gap in Colombia and afterwards by hiking to Panama, by bus to Costa Rica (with a coyote), by walking through Nicaragua and Mexico to the border crossing at Laredo, Texas, where she with “dry feet” was admitted to the U.S. (The U.S. policy that allowed that entry was terminated on January 12, 2017)[3]

The Cuban woman that year (2016) was one of 56,406 Cubans who entered the U.S. via ports of entry. Previously in Fiscal 2014 and 2015 there were  24,278 and 43,159 such entrants.

An author in Diario de Cuba, Roberto Alverez Quinones, asserts that “from the Crisis de los Balseros (Rafter Crisis) in 1994 until 2015 some 660,000 Cubans emigrated, but experts consider believe that the figure actually ascends to one million people.” Now the total “Cuban diaspora currently totals over two million emigrants, meaning that 18% of Cuba’s total population has left it.” “Today, those who emigrate are young people who make up the economically active population (EAP), the driving force that makes the world go around.”

“No one knows [how many will emigrate in 2020.] What is known is that the exodus of Cubans will continue until more pressure is placed on the military gerontocracy that rules the country, it is driven from power, and the constrained power of the Cuban people is finally unleashed.”

On December 11, 2019, the Cuban Government announced that in April 2020 it would hold a conference in Havana about emigration. The stated purpose is to strengthen relations with the emigrants although the Government’s statement emphasized improving relations with Cubans born abroad and those “who do not have a position that is openly against the island’s government.”

Cuba’s Aging, Declining Population[4]

While the number of younger Cubans declines due to low birth rate and increasing emigration, the number of older Cubans increases due to increased life expectancy. The result, Cuba is experiencing an aging, declining population.

 Poor Economic Conditions in Cuba [5]

Underlying all of the above circumstances is the poor economic conditions on the island.

Comparisons with other Latin American countries show the island’s poor economic conditions. “The minimum wage in Cuba today is a quarter of that in Haiti” while  the Cuban average salary is only one-half of that in Haiti. Similar comparisons exist for Chili, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and even poor countries of Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Poverty in Cuba is aggravated by unemployment, despite the government’s erroneous statistics. According to statistics published by different official media, in June of 2018 there were 6.2 million Cubans of working age in Cuba, and 1.7 million of them were not working or studying. This means a technical unemployment rate of 27%. Today, with the worsening economic crisis, it might exceed 30%, and may even be at 33%.

Another contributing factor to Cuba’s poor economic conditions is the ramped-up sanctions by the Trump Administration.[6]

Sociologist’s Comments on the Situation

Elaine Acosta, a sociologist and specialist in population aging, international migration and welfare policies, recently commented on the Cuban government’s new National Survey on Population Aging.[7]

She said it “reaffirms the speed and magnitude with which the process of population aging . . . [is occurring] in Cuban society . . .[putting] the Island at the forefront of aging processes throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The only population group that . . . [is growing] is 60 years and older, especially 75 years and older.”

The projected continuation of this trend will make “the care crisis” deeper and more complex. On the one hand, the demand for Geriatrics, Gerontology services will inevitably continue to increase [along with] Security, Social Assistance and Care. In turn, [this will have] a great impact on the economy . . ., taking into account the decrease in the population potential with capacity for employment and the demand for education at all levels.”

These consequences will have a greater effect on older women due to “the feminization of aging on the Island. Women are not only the majority among the elderly (46.6% of men and 53.4% ​​of women), but also have a greater life expectancy than men.” More generally these consequences will disadvantage “historically disadvantaged groups: women, elderly people, blacks, people with disabilities or street situations, as well as communities in larger territories.”

All of these consequences will  “require important political, economic and cultural changes at different levels (normative, political and programmatic) of social policy. It is a process that, given its complexity and size, will require competition and integration of new social actors (NGOs, churches, the market, etc.), as well as the elderly themselves and their families. ”

In summary, she said, “the problems presented raise the need for a reform of the Cuban social welfare regime in such a way that it can meet the economic, social and health needs of the advanced aging of the population, the population bleeding caused by migration as well as the new demands and social problems that result from these processes and their inadequate management and intervention. ”

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[1] Amor, New Policies Are Needed to Resolve Cuba’s Birth Rate Crisis, Diario de Cuba (Dec. 16, 2019); The numbers are no longer coming to the Government: child mortality rises, births plummet, Diario de Cuba (Jan. 3, 2020); Cuba’s Aging, Declining Population Continues, dwkcommentaries.com (Dec. 13, 2019) .

[2] Id; Krogstad, Surge in Cuban immigration to U.S. continued through 2016, Pew Research Center (Jan. 13, 2017); Poole, Two Women, 11 Countries; A Long Strange Trip From Havana to the U.S., N.Y. Times (Dec. 18, 2019); Alvarez Quińones, How Many Cubans Will Emigrate in 2020? Diario de Cuba (Jan. 14, 2020); Why do young Cuban professionals emigrate to Mexico? (video), Diario de Cuba (Jan. 28, 2020).

[3] U.S. Ends Special Immigration Benefits for Cubans, dwkcommentaries.com (Jan. 13, 2017).

4] Cuba’s Success and Problems with an Aging, Declining Population, dwkcommentaries.com (Mar. 10, 2019);  70% of Cuban elders live deprivation and deprivation, recognizes and official survey,  Diario de Cuba (Dec. 11, 2020); Cuba’s Aging, Declining Population, dwkcommentaries. com ( Jan. 13, 2020).

[5] Alvarez Quińones, Poverty Decreasing Around the World, But Rising in Cuba Diario de Cuba (Nov. 29, 2019).

[6] See, e.g., these posts to dwkcommentaries.com: Young Cuban Discusses the Many Problems of His Country (July 5, 2019); Cuba’s Suffering from Continued U.S. Hostility (Aug. 17, 2019); Decline of U.S. Visitors to Cuba (Aug. 22, 2019);        Dwindling Hope in Cuba (Dec. 18, 2019); President Trump Proclaims His “Success” on Cuba  (Jan. 13, 2020).

[7] The current panorama in Cuba ‘is discouraging to project a dignified old age,’ Diario de Cuba (Jan. 27, 2020).

 

 

U.S. State and Local Governments’ Justifications for Consenting to Resettlement of Refugees

A prior post gave the most current list of 34 states (19 Democrat and 15 Republican) that have consented to refugee resettlement. Now we look at the justifications for consent provided by some of those states.[1]

Praise for Refugees

Although perhaps unanticipated by the Trump Administration, many states that have consented to resettlement of refugees, including some headed by Republican governors, also have reminded all Americans of our national and individual states’ histories of welcoming refugees and other immigrants and of the contributions these individuals have made to our life, culture and economies.

Arizona. The state’s Republican Governor Douglas A. Ducey said, “ Throughout our nation’s history, the United States has been a refuge for individuals fleeing religious and political persecution in their homeland, and Arizona has historically been one of the most welcoming states in terms of the number of refugees resettled here. Refugees arriving in the United States have been vetted and approved by the appropriate national security agencies and Department of State and have been granted legal entry to make a new home in the land of the free.”

Colorado. In a December 16, 2019, letter, Democrat Governor Jared Polis said, “Colorado will continue to assist and resettle more refugees in our communities as long as people around the world are displaced from their home countries.”

“Since 1980, Colorado has welcomed individuals and families fleeing persecution, war, and violence from all over the world through the United States Refugee Admissions Program. Having a robust refugee program ensures that we are upholding our American values of humanitarianism, freedom, and opportunity. Not only is investing in refugees the compassionate and humane thing to do, refugees contribute to our economy in ways that benefit all Coloradans. For every dollar Colorado invests in refugees, we receive a $1.23 return on investment in tax revenue, and four new Colorado jobs are created for every refugee who is resettled in our State.”

Connecticut. Its Democrat Governor Ned Lamont said, “It is a bedrock principle of the United States of America that we welcome to our shores those fleeing tyranny, persecution and violence. As you well know, prior to being admitted to the United States, a refugee must undergo a rigorous vetting process. And we know from our own experience here in Connecticut that refugees enrich the communities that offer them shelter- socially, culturally, and economically. In addition, many people are resettled in our country as part of the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, because they have put their lives and safety, and that of their families, at risk to help ensure the success and safety of our military service members in Afghanistan and Iraq. Connecticut is proud to do its part to honor our country’s commitment to them. The policy of the Trump Administration over several years to cut dramatically the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States is antithetical to our heritage and our values.”

Delaware. Democrat Governor John C. Carney had these words: “Our country has historically been a refuge of safe harbor for those fleeing war-torn countries, violence, and political persecution. We should continue to stand as a beacon of hope and freedom for people around the world. In that spirit, as Delawareans, we are proud to do our part, and continue to accept the resettlement of refugees.”

Illinois. Democrat Governor JB Pritzker said, “Since 1975, the State of Illinois has welcomed and resettled more than 130,000 refugees from more than 86 countries. In recent years, 1,000 to 3,000 refugees, those seeking asylum, and victims of human trafficking arrived in Illinois annually. Refugees have successfully rebuilt their lives and made positive social and economic contributions to Illinois. They have helped revitalize neighborhoods and added to the cultural vitality of our state and communities. As survivors of persecution, refugees embody the importance of human rights, democracy, and freedom. Refugees’ resilience in the face of hardship inspires courage, hope, and perseverance. And refugees’ countless contributions undoubtedly make our states and nation stronger.”

Kansas. Democrat Governor Laura Kelly offered the following: “Kansas has a long and proud history of welcoming the world’s refugees to our state. Refugees are not simply looking for a better home, they are fleeing some of the most horrific violence, war, famine, religious and cultural persecution of our time. Our country and our state can provide the security they need for a safer place to call home. The citizens of Kansas have shown time and again a strong commitment to welcoming refugees into communities statewide.”  She also said, “Refugees come to our country and state looking for a better place to live. Our country and our state benefit as they also make positive contributions in significant ways. They contribute to our economy, workforce and the cultural fabric of our state and nation.”

Maine. On December 16, 2019, the Democrat Governor of Maine expressed the following: “For more than forty years, and under the leadership of seven Democratic, Republican and Independent governors, Maine has participated in the federal refugee resettlement program. Over the course of those decades we have welcomed nearly 10,000 people from more than 30 countries – people who have resettled in Maine with the hope of finding peace, safety and work for themselves and their families.”

“Maine has a workforce shortage, projected to grow worse over the next decade, creating serious challenges for businesses seeking to hire qualified workers in every industry and in every sector of our economy. Our state welcomes refugees who have skills, education and ability, a proven work ethic and tremendous drive. It is the right thing to do, and it is critical to the strength of our economy and our future success as a state.”

Massachusetts. The Republican Governor of Massachusetts Charles D. Baker offered the following words: “ Massachusetts is committed to continuing to serve as a source of hope and opportunity, welcoming those seeking refuge with open arms and ensuring that newcomers feel safe, valued and supported as they settle into a new country and integrate into new communities.”

“The United States has a proud and noble tradition of serving as a country of refuge for those most vulnerable in the world. The Commonwealth welcomed 516 refugees last year, from 30 countries, and has welcomed 14,282 refugees over the past decade, from 59 countries. Throughout history, many of the refugees our Country admitted became distinguished scientists, government leaders, entrepreneurs, cultural icons, and public servants. We have much to gain in providing refuge to those in need. Foreign born employees provide significant support to our economy and make up a critical part of the health and human services sector workforce.”

Michigan. Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer had the following words: “Michigan has a rich history of welcoming refugees and other immigrants to our state. I am committed to ensuring that we remain a leader in responding to the needs of globally displaced families and individuals. We recognize the value of being a welcoming state, and the contribution of refugees to the fabric of our communities. Refugees enhance our state socially, culturally, and economically.”[2]

Minnesota. Democrat Governor Tim Walz put it this way, “Minnesota has a strong moral tradition of welcoming those who seek refuge. Our state has always stepped forward to help those who are fleeing desperate situations and need a safe place to call home. In keeping with this proud history, I offer my consent to continue refugee resettlement in the State of Minnesota.” He added, “ Refugees strengthen our communities. Bringing new cultures and fresh perspectives, they contribute to the social fabric of our state. Opening businesses and supporting existing ones, they are critical to the success of our economy. Refugees are doctors and bus drivers. They are entrepreneurs and police officers. They are students and teachers. They are our neighbors.”

New Jersey. Democrat Governor Philip D. Murphy had the following lengthy rationale for consenting:

  • “New Jersey will continue to welcome refugees anxiously fleeing harm and seeking safety. It is not only the right response; it is the American response.”[3] He continued, “We believe that America must remain a beacon of hope in the world, and we know that opening its doors to those facing danger and oppression is who we are as a nation. We are disheartened by recent attempts to undercut our commitment to freedom and opportunity by shrinking the numbers of who can seek comfort on our shores and by erecting new and significant barriers for refugees desperately reaching for safety. The announcement that your Administration will continue dramatically cutting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States by reducing admission in the coming year to 18,000 from 30,000 -which was already a drastic decline from the 111,000 ceiling just two years ago – is devastating not only for those seeking refuge from harm but for the United States’ standing in the world.”
  • “New Jersey will continue to welcome refugees anxiously fleeing harm and seeking safety. It is not only the right response; it is the American response.”
  • “We believe that America must remain a beacon of hope in the world, and we know that opening its doors to those facing danger and oppression is who we are as a nation. We are disheartened by recent attempts to undercut our commitment to freedom and opportunity by shrinking the numbers of who can seek comfort on our shores and by erecting new and significant barriers for refugees desperately reaching for safety. The announcement that your Administration will continue dramatically cutting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States by reducing admission in the coming year to 18,000 from 30,000 -which was already a drastic decline from the 111,000 cei ling just two years ago – is devastating not only for those seeking refuge from harm but for the United States’ standing in the world.”
  • “Over two million of our residents are immigrants, including refugees, representing nearly 23 percent of New Jersey’s population. There is no doubt that refugees have contributed to the strength of our state and have enriched our communities economically, culturally and socially. Refugees who have made New Jersey their home have helped our state thrive by growing our workforce, starting businesses, contributing to local economies, and becoming valued friends and neighbors.”
  • “We took these actions because we recognize that new Americans are integral to our State’s culture and our economy. Immigrants and refugees in New Jersey include over 120,000 entrepreneurs, employ more than 389,000 people and contribute over $24.2 billion in federal, State, and local taxes. In fact, 43 percent of the State’s science, technology, engineering, and math-focused workforce are new Americans who play a significant part in maintaining the State’s role as a leading innovator in the STEM field. Supporting immigrant and refugee integration is a smart strategy for our State and our country.”
  • “We know that a strong and vibrant democracy like ours requires that we live out our values through our deeds. To do so, we must continue to hold true to who we are as Americans by helping those who come seeking refuge from violence and persecution around the world. My Administration looks forward to continuing to work together with cities and towns across our great State to welcome immigrants and refugees.”

New Mexico. Its Democrat Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham stated, “New Mexico has always welcomed immigrants of all types, including more than 2,500 refugees from 28 countries who have resettled in New Mexico since 2002, adding to the rich multicultural mix of which New Mexicans are so rightly proud.”[4] She also said, “Unlike other immigrants, refugees have been forcibly displaced from their homes, whether by war, famine, religious and cultural persecution or violence. They leave their home countries fearing for their lives, and they come to our shores and our borders often with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, desperate — not for a handout but for a chance to start over.” The New Mexico Governor concluded, “While refugees arrive needing our help, they are often quick to pay back the country and communities that welcome them. They get jobs and pay taxes. They open businesses. They contribute their cuisines and cultures, bringing us new forms of entertainment and understanding.”

North Carolina. Democrat Governor Roy Cooper offered the following words, “North Carolina was one of the first states to welcome refugees to the United States after the United States Refugee Act was signed into law in 1980. Our state has a strong network of community and faith-based groups which aid in resettlement of refugees who seek safety from persecution.”[5]

North Dakota. Republican Governor Doug Burgum said,” North Dakota has had success at integrating refugees who have become responsible citizens and productive members of the workforce.”

Oregon. Kate Brown, Democrat Governor of Oregon, told Secretary Pompeo that Oregon opposed the President’s recent Executive Order on “refugee resettlement, and ask that you return this year’s refugee admission number to previous annual levels. The values reflected in this Executive Order are not the values on which our country was built.”

“It is a sad day for a nation founded on the principle of welcoming ‘poor, tired, and huddled masses.’ Nobody chooses to be a refugee. Refugees are just like us. They have jobs and families. They are parents and friends, teachers and doctors, farmers and fishermen. Since 1975, Oregon has resettled 67,743 refugees. Refugees contribute every day to the strength of our economy, our communities, and our culture. About 70 percent of refugees find employment within the first few months of resettlement. They pay taxes, buy homes, and open businesses. Their search for freedom and a better future for themselves and their children embodies what it means to be an American.”

Pennsylvania. Democrat Governor Tom Wolf offered the following extensive comments:

  • “Pennsylvania has a rich history of opening its doors to those facing persecution and danger. William Penn founded our commonwealth on the principle of religious freedom, seeking to allow those in Europe to escape persecution.”
  • “It is vital that America retain its moral authority throughout the world. And that means that when vulnerable and displaced individuals seek refuge from violence and oppression elsewhere, we welcome them to find that refuge in America. This maintains our image as a beacon of hope and freedom, and shows the world that America is the antithesis of the places these individuals are fleeing.”
  • “For decades, refugees have made our communities better, and I am committed to continuing that tradition to the fullest extent of my ability. In communities from Allentown to Lancaster to Erie, and elsewhere, refugees are resettling, making a home, finding employment, starting businesses, paying taxes, and enriching their communities. Church World Service, based in Lancaster, has gained national attention for how it has brought refugees and communities together to find mutual understanding and build strong relationships despite differences. That, to me, is the best of America.”
  • “During past conflicts, America has accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees who were fleeing violence and persecution. [For example,] Jewish refugees came to Pennsylvania from Germany and other European countries to escape the Nazi occupation and religious persecution. . . . As millions of people in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa face violence, persecution, and death, we should continue to help those we can while taking care to protect our commonwealth and our country, just as we have done for hundreds of years. To reject refugees outright emboldens the message of those who seek to inspire hatred by saying that we, as Americans, do not have compassion or care for specific groups of people in the world facing persecution or worse.”
  • “I am dismayed that America is sharply reducing its commitment to extend a hand of hope and freedom to vulnerable families across the world. But I remain committed to ensure – to the fullest extent possible – that Pennsylvania continues our founding traditions of tolerance and acceptance.”

Texas. Although Texas is listed as consenting in the PMR website, there is no hyperlinked state consent letter and secondary sources say to date Texas Governor is noncommittal on the subject. Instead there is one from Judge Nelson W. Wolf, Bexar County, where San Antonio is located. The Judge said the following:

  • “By definition, refugees are individuals who have been forced to flee their home country due to persecution based on their race, religion, ethnicity, political opinion, or social group. Resettlement is the last resort for refugees who cannot return to their home country and cannot rebuild their lives where they first fled.”
  • “The United States is one of 27 resettlement countries, and has the most extensive refugee vetting in the world. Refugees undergo biometric screenings, medical checks, in-person interviews with specially trained officers from the Department of Homeland Security, and interagency checks involving DHS, the State Department, Department of Defense, FBI, and the National Counter Terrorism Center.”
  • “The USRAP [U.S. Refugee Admissions Program] is a prime example of a public-private partnership between the federal government, state and local governments, local non-profit organizations, and volunteers that provide refugees with the tools of self-reliance housing, community orientation, English-language classes, and job placement. Every day, community members in Bexar County, Texas are volunteering with resettlement offices to help refugees integrate and thrive.”
  • “Even before Congress enacted the Refugee Act of 1980, faith communities across the United States built what we know today as the USRAP, welcoming refugees from World War II, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Rwandan genocide, and the Syrian refugee crisis, just to name a few. In addition, faith communities are still deeply involved in refugee resettlement. This is part of our nation’s heritage and we are proud to welcome refugees.”
  • “Refugees are resilient, hard workers whose innovative skills have contributed greatly to our state. They have opened businesses, revitalized towns, and are productive members of our community. Multiple studies demonstrate that refugees are economic contributors and job creators.”

Utah. Republican Governor Gary R. Herbert offered these words in a letter to President Trump, “I encourage you to allow us to accept more international refugees in Utah. We have historically accepted and resettled more than 1,000 refugees each year from a variety of troubled regions of the world. Unfortunately, that number has dropped for the past two years and is on track to decrease more this year. We know the need has not decreased and are eager to see the number of admittances rise again.”

Governor Herbert went on. “Utah’s unique history informs our approach to refugees. Our state was founded by religious refugees fleeing persecution in the Eastern United States. Those experiences and hardships of our pioneer ancestors 170 years ago are still fresh in the minds of many Utahns. As a result we empathize deeply with individuals and groups who have been forced from their homes and we love giving them a new home and a new life.” He added, “And it turns out we do it quite well. Those refugees who resettle in Utah become integrated and accepted into our communities. They become productive employees and responsible citizens. They become contributors in our schools, churches and other civic institutions, even helping serve more recent refugees and thus generating a beautiful cycle of charity. This marvelous compassion is simply embedded into our state’ s culture.”

Virginia. Democrat Governor Ralph S. Northam said the following:

  • “Virginia has welcomed refugees who are fleeing war, persecution, or other dire circumstances. We know that no one chooses to abandon their home until conditions become so difficult that the unknown is preferable.”
  • “The United States has long presented itself as a haven, a place of stability and economic prosperity. We promote the ideals upon which this country was founded, of liberty and freedom. But lo uphold those ideals abroad, we must allow access to them here at home. We must practice what we preach.”
  • “Virginia helps refugees settle into new homes only in those localities that participate in the Virginia Community Capacity Initiative, which ensures that a community’ s elected officials, faith leaders, schools, and other stakeholders are committed to helping refugees build new homes and lives. We work with resettlement agencies that have deep ties to these communities. We have always been clear that successful resettlement only happens with community involvement.”
  • “Because of our proximity to Washington, D.C., we are a preferred location for many Special Immigrant Visa holders: Iraqi and Afghanistan refugees who provided services to the U.S. military in those countries, and whose lives and families are in danger because of that service.”
  • “In recent years, as the federal government has lowered the number of refugees accepted into the United States, Virginia’s refugee number has dropped. We have the capacity to accept and help more refugees than we currently have.”
  • “These are people who no longer have a home. History shows us that this could happen to any of us. We must all imagine ourselves in their shoes, and treat them as we would wish to be treated. If I were ever in such a position, I hope a friendly country would take me in and let me rebuild my life in peace and safety. I believe people of decency would share that hope. Virginia’s lights are on and our doors are open, and we welcome new Virginians to make their homes here.”

 Washington. Democrat Governor Jay Inslee had these words:

  • “[The] State of Washington wholeheartedly consents to welcoming and resettling refugees into our communities—a long and proud tradition that we intend to continue.”
  • “As the state that resettled the second highest number of refugees last year, we are honored to remain a place of safety and security for those fleeing persecution and violence. Since 1975, Washington has bought in nearly 150,000 refugees from 70 different countries, including Vietnam, Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Refugees contribute to all sectors of our economy—as teachers, service members, doctors, and more—while adding to our rich cultural landscape. They are an integral part of Washington’s past, present, and future.”
  • “Just last week, we celebrated the success of Dr. Anisa Ibrahim, a Washingtonian who resettled in our state after fleeing war-torn Somalia more than two decades ago. Only six years old when her family first arrived in the United States, Dr. Ibrahim later graduated from the University of Washington Medical School and now leads a pediatric clinic in Seattle—the same clinic that treated her when she and her siblings were children.”
  • “Her story is not unique. Throughout our state, children and families speak of similar circumstances, of having sacrificed everything to seek refuge in America from violence, starvation, and other horrors most of us will thankfully never experience. Many of these children are now leaders in our communities, bringing with them their unique perspectives on tragedy, perseverance, and triumph. Washington State is stronger and our communities are richer because of their important contributions.”
  • “given all of the benefits of a robust resettlement program, we should not cast aside our founding principles as a nation. Enshrined in the Statue of Liberty, the ‘Mother of Exiles,’ is our country’s commitment as a safe place for humanity’s most vulnerable. Lest we forget that, of the 26,000,000 refugees worldwide, more than half are children.”
  • “I remain troubled by the Administration’s deep cuts to refugee resettlement and disappointed that my call for a considerably higher number of refugees went unanswered. I hope you will recognize the success of our efforts in the coming year when your administration revisits the refugee cap for 2021.”

Wisconsin. Democrat  Governor Tony Evers told Secretary Pompeo, “Our state has a rich history of opening its doors to people of all backgrounds, experiences, and walks of life. Through the years, while the people seeking resettlement opportunity in Wisconsin have changed, their circumstances have not: they are people seeking a new life, they embrace American ideals, and they bring with them valuable skills and experience which benefit all of us.” He also said, “Following the end of World War II, Wisconsin welcomed its first refugees as defined by the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention. Our state has since continued to offer opportunities for safety and a new life to those from around the world who are granted resettlement. Over the past two decades, Wisconsin has welcomed more than 16,000 refugees from countries around the world, including Laos, Vietnam, the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Iraq. Most recently, our state has welcomed people from Burma and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

In addition, Evers said, “Refugees and immigrants are essential to Wisconsin’s economy, from manufacturing to education, and public service to agriculture and healthcare. At a time when we are seeing labor shortages across our state, it is irresponsible for the administration to place obstacles in the path of talented and hard-working folks seeking refuge and a better life.” Moreover, “our refugees are a critically important part of our families, our communities, and our culture—they are part of the fabric of our state. Wisconsin’s refugee population is resilient and determined—they want to help themselves and their family, they want to continue working toward their dreams of living safely and freely, and they are eager to give back to the communities who welcome them. These contributions and our diversity and our differences make us and our state stronger, not weaker.”

Other Evidence of Positive Impact of Refugees on U.S. Economy

There are at least two independent studies of the economic impact of refugees on the U.S. economy: the New American Economy’s report From Struggle to Resilience, the Economic Impact of Refugees in America (June 2017) and the National Bureau of Economic Research’s report The Economic and Social Outcomes of Refugees in the U.S. (June 2017), https://www.nber.org/papers/w23498

They have documented the following:

  • Refugees pay $21,000 more in taxes than they receive in benefits on average in their first 20 years in the U.S.
    • Refugee rates of entrepreneurship (15%) exceed other immigrants (11.5%) as well as U.S. born (9%).
    • Refugees become citizens at a higher rate than non-refugee immigrants. In 2015, 84% of eligible refugees were naturalized citizens as compared to 51% of other immigrants.
    • Refugee children do as well as U.S.-born children on measures of education attainment.
    • Over 77% of refugees are of working age as compared to 49.7% of the U.S.-born population, helping to meet U.S. labor force needs.

 Conclusion

All of the above points need to be widely publicized to promote wider public support for refugee resettlement.

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[1]  See consent letters hyperlinked to list of states in State Dep’t, State and Local Consents Under Executive Order 13888. https://www.state.gov/state-and-local-consents-under-executive-order-13888/ See also sources listed in these posts to dwkcommentaries.com: U.S. Sets 18,000 Quota for New Refugee Admissions to U.S. for Fiscal 2020 (Nov. 4, 2019; U.S. Senators Oppose U.S.Reduction in Refugee Admissions for Fiscal 2020 (Nov. 11, 2019);Latest U.S. Struggle Over Refugees (Dec. 11, 2019); Minnesota and Minneapolis Say “Yes” to Refugees (Dec. 14, 2019); Updates on States’ Consents to Refugee Resettlement (Dec. 16, 2019); Tennessee Consents to Refugees Resettlement (Dec. 20, 2019);  Another Update on States’ Consents to Refugees Resettlement (Dec. 30, 2019).

[2] Letter, Governor Whitmer to Secretary Pompeo(Dec. 10, 2019).

[3] Letter, Governor Murphy to President Trump (Nov. 1, 2019).

[4] Letter, Governor Grisham to Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountain (Oct. 7, 2019).

[5] Letter, Governor Cooper to Secretary Pompeo (Dec. 9, 2019).

 

U.S. Unjustified Campaign To Discredit Cuba’s Foreign Medical Mission Program 

Over the last several years, the U.S. has been waging a campaign seeking to discredit Cuba’s foreign medical mission program. This campaign includes the State Department’s annual reports on human trafficking that have alleged Cuba has been engaged in illegal forced labor of some of its medical professionals in these programs. Another part was the recent decision to deny U.S. visas to Cuban officials directing the medical mission program.[1] The most recent measure has been the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID’s) soliciting bids to conduct research and analysis of evidence regarding the forced labor allegation. Some Congressmen also have suggested reactivation of a U.S. program providing U.S. parole visas for such medical professionals to be admitted to the U.S.[2] Unsurprisingly Cuba denies these allegations and condemns these U.S. programs. (Emphases added.)

Here we will look at key parts of this trafficking in persons report, the recent USAID solicitation of bids for research and analysis, Cuba’s response to that solicitation and a demonstration why the U.S. allegations are specious.

U.S. 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report [3]

The most recent such report, which was issued on June 20, 2019, said the following, in part:

  • In November 2018, Cuban healthcare workers filed a class action in the U.S. District Court Southern District of Florida under the Trafficking Victims Protection and the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Acts alleging the Cuban government profited from the export of healthcare professionals; the case remains pending.[4] In Brazil, the Cuban government collected revenue for each professional’s services and paid the worker a fraction of the revenue depositing a large percentage of the worker’s wages in an account in Cuba only accessible upon completion of the mission and return to Cuba. . . . Some participants in foreign medical missions as well as other sources allege Cuban officials force or coerce participation in the program; the government has stated the postings are voluntary, and some participants also have stated the postings are voluntary and well-paid compared to jobs within Cuba. Observers report the government does not inform participants of the terms of their contracts, making them more vulnerable to forced labor. The Cuban government acknowledges that it withholds passports of overseas medical personnel in Venezuela; the government provided identification cards to such personnel. Some Cuban medical personnel claim they work long hours without rest and face substandard working and living conditions in some countries, including a lack of hygienic conditions and privacy. Observers note Cuban authorities coerced some participants to remain in the program, including by withholding their passports, restricting their movement, using “minders” to conduct surveillance of participants outside of work, threatening to revoke their medical licenses, retaliate against their family members in Cuba if participants leave the program, or impose criminal penalties, exile, and family separation if participants do not return to Cuba as directed by government supervisors.” (Emphases added.)

USAID’s Solicitation of Research Bids [5]

On August 12, 2019, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that it was offering up to $3 million to organizations that would “investigate, collect, and analyze information related to human rights violations – including forced labor – of Cuban medical personnel exported overseas.”

USAID purported to justify this effort by alleging, “The Cuban regime exploits its medical professionals, teachers and other workers, using them to buy international financial and political support and keep its struggling economy afloat, while pocketing the majority of these workers’ salaries and subjecting them to poor living conditions, constant surveillance, and threatening those who wish to leave their mission. At the same time, Cubans on the island struggle to find adequate healthcare and other basic services while the regime touts the false narrative that it has the best medical care in the world.” (Emphasis added.)

In addition, USAID said, “the information collected should also document the effects of these practices on Cubans on the island. The data collected would be used for advocacy within Cuba, in Latin America and with regional and international bodies, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in an effort to pressure the Cuban regime to improve the living conditions of doctors and other workers, and promote greater respect for labor and other basic human rights for all Cuban citizens.”

Cuba’s Response[6]

In an August 30 Declaration, the Cuba Foreign Ministry “energetically denounces and condemns the recent aggression of the government of the United States against Cuba via a USAID program designed to fund actions and information searches to discredit and sabotage the international cooperation being provided by Cuba in the health area in dozens of countries for the benefit of millions of persons.  This is an endeavor added to the crude pressures exercised against a number of governments in order to obstruct Cuban cooperation and to the earlier efforts for the same purpose such as the special ‘parole’ program designed to steal human resources trained in Cuba.”

“The heart of this immoral calumny consists of alleging, with no factual foundations whatsoever, that Cuba is involved in the traffic of persons or in the practice of slavery, and wishing to degrade the meritorious work that hundreds of thousands of Cuban health professionals and technicians are voluntarily undertaking, and have been undertaking, throughout history, in a number of countries, especially in the Third World.”

This is “an affront to the bilateral and intergovernmental cooperation programs, all lawfully set up between the Cuban Government and the governments of dozens of countries, which have been consistent with the [U.N.] guidelines referring to South–South cooperation and which have responded to the health requirements that those same governments have defined in a sovereign manner.”

“This is an attack against the efforts in solidarity which have received the acknowledgement of the international community and the specific praise from the most senior officials of the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization.”

“These lies reveal the low morality of the [U.S.] government and its politicians who devoted themselves to the business of aggression against Cuba.  The campaign has millions of dollars of funds and the complicity of a number of the mass media giants and, particularly, of unscrupulous reporters who have sacrificed their so-called impartiality and objectivity in the service of the political interests of the [U.S.] government.”

“For decades . . . in those nations having more unfavorable economic conditions, that cooperation has been provided, and is being provided, as a gesture of solidarity; its expenses are covered by Cuba practically in their entirety. Likewise, and following the [U.N.] conceptions on cooperation between developing countries, this is being offered in various nations on the basis of complementarity and partial compensation for services rendered.”

Cuba has provided “self-sacrificing and humanist professionals ready and willing to work of their own free will in the most difficult of conditions, and of the ideas of health coverage that years of successful experience has permitted us to build up.”

“The Cuban technicians and professionals participating in those programs do so in an absolutely free and voluntary manner.  While serving their missions, they continue to be paid their entire Cuban salaries and they also receive stipends from the destination countries, along with other forms of compensation.”

“In cases where Cuba receives compensation for the cooperation being provided, those . . . [countries] distinguish themselves by contributing a highly valued, fair and totally lawful amount for the funding, sustainability and development of the massive and free health system that is accessible to each and every Cuban, as well as for the cooperation programs that are carried into many parts of the world.”

“Access to health is a human right.  The United States is committing a crime when it wishes to deny that or to obstruct it for political reasons or as aggression.”

This Cuban criticism was echoed in an August 31 tweet by President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who said, “The carelessness, the lie, the perversity of the empire crumble before the moral height accumulated by the dignified history of the Cuban missions in health.”

The Specious U.S. Allegation of Illegal Forced Labor [7]

The contention that Cuban medical personnel in Cuba’s foreign medical mission program are engaged in illegal forced labor is meritless for at least the following reasons:

  • Medical education in Cuba is free and requiring medical graduates to pay the country back by such participation seems entirely appropriate and may indeed be a contractual or quasi-contractual obligation.
  • International medical aid has been a significant part of the Cuban people’s tradition of international solidarity, and some Cuban medical personnel have said that such service had a major positive impact on their lives and medical careers.
  • The relevant standard for evaluating the allegationthat Cuba’s international medical mission program violates international law is the International Labor Organization’s Forced Labour Convention, 1930.
  • That multilateral Convention or treaty provides that “for the purposes of this Convention, the term forced or compulsory labour shall not include . . . any work or service which forms part of the normal civic obligations of the citizens of a fully self-governing country.” (Art. 2(2)(b).) (Emphasis added.)
  • Although it is true that the Cuban government receives direct payment from other countries for the foreign medical mission program and that the Cuban government retains some of those payments before paying the Cuban medical professionals, it also is true that such payments to those professionals exceed what they would have earned for similar services in Cuba. In addition, some of the payments to the Cuban professionals are deposited in Cuban accounts only accessible upon their completion of service and return to Cuba. But such practices do not constitute proof of forced labor.
  • While it also is true that some Cuban medical professionals who have participated or are now participating in the foreign medical mission program allege that they were coerced into doing so, the report indicates that the Cuban government and other participants deny that allegation and that there has been no independent adjudication of that allegation. (Emphases added.)
  • Also relevant to this allegation is Cuban medical professionals’ undoubted awareness of the significantly higher compensation they potentially could obtain if they were able to relocate in the U.S. or certain other countries.
  • A detailed study by Indiana State University’s Emeritus Professor of International Politics and Latin America, Dr. H. Michael Erisman, has rejected this accusation of forced labor.

The latest report on Cuba also fails to mention that the U.S. and Cuba apparently had friendly bilateral discussions about other human trafficking issues during the Obama Administration (2015 through January 17, 2017) and the Trump Administration (2017-2018).

The hypocrisy of the State Department’s repeated assertion of this claim of forced labor without recognizing the ILO’s Forced Labour Convention is shown by Secretary of State Pompeo’s congratulating the ILO on its centennial anniversary only one day after the release of the 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report. The Secretary said:

  • “The dignitaries that convened in Paris in 1919 to end the Great War knew that any lasting peace needed to be rooted in the protection of individual rights, including the rights of workers and employers to associate freely and bargain collectively. “
  • The United States proudly hosted the first International Labor Conference in 1919 and the “war-time conference that enshrined the ILO’s enduring founding principles and aims in the Declaration of Philadelphia. As strong supporters of the ILO and its mission, we reflect on the important role played by Americans to create and sustain this organization, including David Morse, who served as ILO Director-General for 22 years, and under whose leadership the ILO won the Nobel Peace Prize.”
  • “As the ILO enters its second century pursuing objectives critical to economic prosperity and security around the world, the United States recommits itself to advancing the rights of workers globally.

Another rebuttal of the U.S. allegations about the medical mission program recently was provided by a U.S. citizen, Dr. Graham Sowa, who has a Cuban medical degree and who now is a resident in internal medicine in a Florida hospital. He did not participate in the Cuban medical mission program, but his Cuban friends who are now physicians have done so and who totally reject this allegation. Sowa said, ““Cuba says they want to provide humanity with medical care. It is their commitment toward international solidarity.”

Conclusion

No matter how many times the U.S. alleges that Cuba’s foreign medical mission program engages in illegal forced labor does not make it so. The U.S. has not even publicly submitted an attempted legal justification for these allegations.  The U.S. is wasting money on this specious claim.

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[1]  New U.S. Government Hostility Towards Cuba’s Medical Mission Program, dwkcommentaries.com (Aug. 14, 2019)

[2] Senators Rubio and Menendez Call for Restoring U.S. Parole Program for Cuban Doctors, dwkcommentaries.com (Jan. 11, 2019). See also posts listed n the “Cuban Medical Personnel & U.S.” section of List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: CUBA.

[3] State Department Unjustly Downgrades Cuba in Annual Report on Human Trafficking, dwkcommentaries.com (June 22, 2019).

[4]  Pais, Health Organization Accused of Trafficking Doctors to Brazil, Courthouse News Service (Dec. 3, 2018)  The class action complaint, which was filed November 30, 2018, alleges that the Pan American Health Organization collected over $75 million since 2013 by enabling and managing the illegal trafficking of Cuban medical professionals in violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Nothing of substance has happened so far in this case. The last docket entry was on July 2, 2019, for an order setting a hearing on July 18, 2019, for Pan American Health’s objections to and appeal from a magistrate judge’s order denying its motion to transfer the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. (Civil Docket, Rodriguez v. Pan American Health Org., Case #: 1:18-cv-24995-DPG (Aug. 30, 2019).

[5] Eaton, USAID plans to spend up to $3 million to investigate Cuban doctors, Cuba Solidarity Campaign (Aug. 12, 2019).

[6] Cuba Foreign Ministry, Statement: The Government of the United States Is Earmarking Millions of Dollars To Obstruct Cuban Medical Cooperation (Aug. 30, 2019); The regime blames the US for complaints about the exploitation of Cuban doctors, Diario de Cuba (Aug. 29, 2019); Diaz-Canel described the ‘attacks’ and the ‘attacks by the US on the slae of medical services, Diario de Cuba (Sept. 1, 2019).

[7] State Department Unjustly Downgrades Cuba in Annual Report on Human Trafficking, dwkcommentaries.com (June 22, 2019); Guzzo, Are Cuban physicians human trafficking victims? No way, says Brandon doctor with Havana degree, Tampa Bay Times (Aug. 29, 2019).

 

 

U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights Is Launched

On July 8, 2019, the U.S. State Department launched its Commission on Unalienable Rights.[1]

Secretary of State Pompeo’s Remarks

At the launch Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said “the Trump administration has embarked on a foreign policy that takes seriously the founders’ ideas of individual liberty and constitutional government. Those principles have long played a prominent role in our country’s foreign policy, and rightly so. But as that great admirer of the American experiment Alex de Tocqueville noted, democracies have a tendency to lose sight of the big picture in the hurly-burly of everyday affairs. Every once in a while, we need to step back and reflect seriously on where we are, where we’ve been, and whether we’re headed in the right direction, and that’s why I’m pleased to announce today the formation of a Commission on Unalienable Rights.”

The Commission will focus on “human rights grounded in our nation’s founding principles and the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An American commitment to uphold human rights played a major role in transforming the moral landscape of the international relations after World War II, something all Americans can rightly be proud of. Under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights ended forever the notion that nations could abuse their citizens without attracting notice or repercussions.” (Emphasis added.)

“With the indispensable support of President Ronald Reagan, a human rights revolution toppled the totalitarian regimes of the former Soviet Union. Today the language of human rights has become the common vernacular for discussions of human freedom and dignity all around the world, and these are truly great achievements.”

“But we should never lose sight of the warnings of Vaclav Havel, a hero of the late-20th-century human rights movement, that words like ‘rights’ can be used for good or evil; ‘they can be rays of light in a realm of darkness … [but] they can also be lethal arrows.’ And as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has observed, the evils of any time and place will be justified in whatever is the dominant discourse of that time and of that place. We must, therefore, be vigilant that human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or malignant purposes.”

“It’s a sad commentary on our times that more than 70 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, gross violations continue throughout the world, sometimes even in the name of human rights. International institutions designed and built to protect human rights have drifted from their original mission. As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another, provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect. Nation-states and international institutions remain confused about their respective responsibilities concerning human rights.” (Emphasis added.)

 With that as background and with all of this in mind, the time is right for an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy.” (Emphasis added,)

The Secretary hopes that the Commission “will revisit the most basic of questions: What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right? How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored? How can there be human rights, rights we possess not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity belong to us? Is it, in fact, true, as our Declaration of Independence asserts, that as human beings, we – all of us, every member of our human family – are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights? (Emphasis added.)

To put it another way, “the commission’s charge is to point the way toward that more perfect fidelity to our nation’s founding principles. . . .” (Emphasis added.)

Secretary Pompeo’s Prior Wall Street Journal Article[2]

The day before the Department’s launching of the Commission. Secretary Pompeo published an article about the Commission in the Wall Street Journal, in which he made the following comments beyond what he said at the official launch.

“America’s Founders defined unalienable rights as including ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ They designed the Constitution to protect individual dignity and freedom. A moral foreign policy should be grounded in this conception of human rights.”

“Yet after the Cold War ended, many human-rights advocates turned their energy to new categories of rights. These rights often sound noble and just. But when politicians and bureaucrats create new rights, they blur the distinction between unalienable rights and ad hoc rights granted by governments. Unalienable rights are by nature universal. Not everything good, or everything granted by a government, can be a universal right. Loose talk of ‘rights’ unmoors us from the principles of liberal democracy.” (Emphasis added.)

He hopes “that its work will generate a serious debate about human rights that extends across party lines and national borders.” It “will address basic questions: What are our fundamental freedoms? Why do we have them? Who or what grants these rights? How do we know if a claim of human rights is true? What happens when rights conflict? Should certain categories of rights be inextricably ‘linked’ to other rights?”

“The human-rights cause once united people from disparate nations and cultures in the effort to secure fundamental freedoms and fight evils like Nazism, communism and apartheid. We have lost that focus today. Rights claims are often aimed more at rewarding interest groups and dividing humanity into subgroups.” (Emphasis added.)

Oppressive regimes like Iran and Cuba have taken advantage of this cacophonous call for ‘rights,’ even pretending to be avatars of freedom. No one believed the Soviet call for collective economic and civil rights was really about freedom. But after the Cold War ended, many human-rights advocates adopted the same approach, appealing to contrived rights for political advantage.” (Emphases added.)

“The commission’s work could also help reorient international institutions specifically tasked to protect human rights, like the United Nations, back to their original missions. Many have embraced and even accelerated the proliferation of rights claims—and all but abandoned serious efforts to protect fundamental freedoms.” (Emphasis added.)

Human-rights advocacy has lost its bearings and become more of an industry than a moral compass. And ‘rights talk’ has become a constant element of our domestic political discourse, without any serious effort to distinguish what rights mean and where they come from.” (Emphasis added.)

Announcement of Commission’s Chair

On July 8, the Secretary announced that the Chair of the Commission will be Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, an expert on human rights, comparative law and political theory and former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, among many honors.

Professor Glendon acknowledged this appointment with the following remarks:

 

  • “Secretary, I am deeply grateful for the honor of chairing this new commission, and I wanted to thank you especially for giving a priority to human rights at this moment when basic human rights are being misunderstood by many, manipulated by many, and ignored by the world’s worst human rights violators. At the same time, I understand that the mission that you have set us is a challenging one. You’ve asked us to work at the level of principle, not policy, and you’ve asked us to take our bearings from the distinctive rights tradition of the United States of America, a tradition that is grounded in the institutions without which rights would not be possible: constitutional government and the rule of law. I want to assure you, Mr. Secretary, that we will do our very best to carry out your marching orders and to do so in a way that will assist you in your difficult task of transmuting principle into policy.”

Announcement of Nine Other Commission Members

The Secretary also announced the appointment of the following nine additional members of the Commission. (The Commission’s Charter calls for 15 members so there may be an additional five members to be named later.)[3]

Russell Berman. He is the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-chair of its Working Group on Islamism and the International Order. Recently he has written about the reemergence of anti-Semitism and China’s “programmatic efforts to suppress the ethnic identity of the Uighur people” of Islamic faith.

Peter Berkowitz.  He is the Ted and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of its Military History/Contemporary Conflict Working Group and a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. He “studies and writes about, among other things, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in the United States, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics.”

Paolo Carozza. He is Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and Director of its Kellogg Institute for International Studies an interdisciplinary, university-wide body “focusing on the themes of democracy and human development.”  His expertise is in the areas of comparative constitutional law, human rights, law and development and international law. From 2006 through 2010 he was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the principle international body for protecting human rights in the Western Hemisphere, and he also has served the Holy See in various capacities.

Hamza Yusuf Hanson. He is an American Islamic scholar, proponent of classical Islamic sciences and founder of Zaytuna College, a Muslim liberal arts college in Berkeley, California. According to The New Yorker Magazine, he is  “perhaps the most influential Islamic scholar in the Western world.” He was born in the U.S. as Mark Hanson and grew up a practicing Greek Orthodox Christian, but at age 19 he read the Qur-an and converted to Islam.

Jacqueline C.  Rivers. She is Lecturer on Sociology at Harvard University. She holds B.A. and Ph. D degrees with honors from Radcliffe College and Harvard and has served as Doctoral Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy of the Harvard’s J. F. Kennedy School of Government and a Graduate Research Fellow of the National Science Foundation. Rivers, an African-American, also is the Executive Director of the Seymour Institute on Black Church and Policy Studies, which seeks to create and promote a philosophical, political and theological framework for a pro-poor, pro-life, pro-family movement within the ecumenical Black Church both domestically and internationally.

Meir Soloveichik. He is an American Orthodox rabbi with a Ph.D. degree in religion from Princeton University. He has written extensively about Jewish thought and life, the relationship between Judaism and Christianity and the limits of interfaith dialogue. In 2012 he gave the opening invocation at the Republican National Convention.

Katrina Lantos Swett. She is the former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and now the President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights, which is named in honor of her father, a Holocaust survivor and former Democratic Congressman. She is married to Richard Swett, former Ambassador to Denmark and former Congressman, and she converted to his faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has been an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

Christopher Tollefsen. He is the University of South Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Philosophy Professor with specialization in moral philosophy, natural law ethics, practical ethics and bioethics. He has written many articles for “Public Discourse,” the journal of the Witherspoon Institute, which seeks to promote public understanding of the moral foundations of free societies.  He also is a co-author of Embryo: A Defense of Human Life and the editor of John Paul II’s Contribution to Catholic Bioethics.

David Tse-Chien Pan. He is Professor of German at University of California, Irvine. His research has focused on the problem of aesthetic experience as a mediator of human history in order to understand how history develops through a process of recollection and interpretation that depends on judgment and takes the reception of works of art as its model.

Reactions

Secretary Pompeo’s Wall Street Journal article for the first time really sets forth what has been speculated as the Commission’s true mission: redefinition and narrowing of international human rights.

A senior State Department official, in a report by CBS News, made the same point, perhaps more diplomatically, when he said the Commission will act like a “study group, examining the concept of universal human rights, where those rights come from and the difference between inherent rights and those prescribed by governments. . . . Unalienable rights are granted to everyone, everywhere, at all times. It doesn’t matter if you’re straight or gay, or a man or a woman, or black, white, brown or purple.’”

However, this official said, topics like abortion and gay marriage will not be part of the panel’s agenda. ‘Women’s rights or gay rights or healthcare rights, those are domestic issues.’ At some point gay marriage might be considered one of those, but this is an issue that’s being worked out on a nation-state level.’”

The importance of this Commission from the Trump Administration’s standpoint is underscored by the impressive resumes of its Chairperson and its initial other members. Therefore, advocates for the existing body of international human rights law need to prepare to combat this onslaught.

Amnesty International USA immediately said there was no reason for such a review given the decades-old protections in place and that the use of the word “unalienable” might be a code word to narrow human rights to the Founders’ notions of the late 18th century. Similar thoughts were expressed by the American Civil Liberties Union: “taxpayer resources would be better spent assessing the administration’s failure to meet basic human rights obligations, rather than redefining those rights.”

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[1] State Dep’t, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo Remarks to the Press (July 8, 2019); Sullivan & Wong, State Department Creates Advisory Panel on Human Rights, N.Y. Times (July 8, 2019); Reuters, Pompeo Launches Panel to Review Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy, N.Y. Times (July 8, 2019)(notes Trump Administration’s U.N. actions against sexual and reproductive health measures); Assoc. Press, Trump Administration Reviews Human Rights’ Role in US Policy, N.Y. Times (July 8, 2019). Previous posts to this blog have discussed this Commission: Is Trump Administration Attempting To Redefine International Human Rights? (June 15, 2019); Other Reactions to State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights (June 17, 2019); More Thoughts on Commission on Unalienable Rights (June 18, 2019); U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights: Developments (July 4, 2019).

[2] Pompeo, Unalienable Human Rights and U.S. foreign Policy, W.S.J. (July 7, 2019).

[3] Another source listed two possible additional members of the Commission: Kiron Skinner and F. Cartwright Weiland. Skinner is the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and a former Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Weiland is a current or former chief speechwriter for Senator John Cornyn and Republican Whip (Rep., TX) and/or Policy Analyst at Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute. (Ruffini, Mike Pompeo unveils new “Unalienable Rights” commission amid concerns over progressive rollbacks, CBS News (July 8, 2019).)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Critique of John Bolton’s Consistent Advocacy of Using Aggressive Force

On April 17, as criticized in a prior post, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton announced in Miami additional U.S. sanctions against Cuba on the anniversary of the 1961 failed U.S. invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs (Playa Girõn).[1]

 

Now Dexter Filkins, an award-winning journalist, reminds us that Bolton has a deserved reputation as the  “Republican Party’s most militant foreign-policy thinker—an advocate of aggressive force who ridicules anyone who disagrees.”  Bolton also is a consistent opponent of multilateral institutions and treaties.

For example, In the George W. Bush Administration Bolton was Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs and a strong advocate for the 2001 U.S. invasion of Iraq. He re-endorsed that opinion in 2015 when he said, “I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct.”

In May 2002, still as Under-Secretary, in a speech at the Heritage Foundation he said the Cuban government was developing an ambitious biological weapons program and collaborating with Libya and Iran, all contrary to the opinion of  the State Department’s internal intelligence bureau.

Today he presumably would admit that Venezuela poses no immediate threat to the U.S., but believes it is dangerous because it was allowing Russia to gain a foothold in the region and because it has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. On the other hand, presumably he would not concede that U.S. hostile policies towards that country and Cuba were providing Russia with the opportunity to expand its influence in the region.

The Monroe Doctrine, Bolton recently admitted, is a prohibition against outside powers interceding in Latin America that does not include U.S. use of armed forces in the region. But the Roosevelt Corollary, he added, provides for that use of force, and Bolton says, “I haven’t invoked that—yet.”[2]

Given the Trump Administration’s currently not having a permanent Secretary of Defense and no Secretary of Homeland Security and Ambassador to the U.N., “Bolton would have extraordinary latitude in a crisis., and as long as Trump’s  base is applauding, then Bolton can do whatever he wants.”

Dexter Filkins, the author of this New Yorker article, has been called “the premier combat journalist of his generation” for his reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 and a National Book Critics Award for his “The Forever War.”[3]

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[1] Filkins, John Bolton On the Warpath, New Yorker (May 6, 2019). See also, John Bolton’s New threat Against Cuba, dwkcommentaries.com (April 2, 2019); U.S. National Security Advisor Announces New U.S. Hostility Towards Cuba, dwkcommentaries.com (Nov. 3, 2018); Zakaria, Does a Trump doctrine on foreign policy exist? Ask John Bolton, Wash. Post (May 2, 2019) (Bolton has “a dark view of humankind” which requires the U.S. to be “aggressive, unilateral and militant;” and a “longtime fan of regime change”).

[2] State Dep’t, Office of the Historian, Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, 1904.

[3] Dexter Filkins, The New Yorker; Dexter Filkins, Wikipedia.

 

U.S. Considering Re-Designating Cuba as “State Sponsor of Terrorism” 

According to the Miami Herald, the U.S. is considering re-designating Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” if Cuba’s government and military continue to support Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. A senior U.S. official said,  ”What Cubans are doing in Venezuela is unacceptable,. And the United States is evaluating options to address that behavior.” [1]

This unnamed official added, ““The Cubans are executing a strategy to keep the military from second-guessing their support to Maduro. The only thing that is preventing the generals from supporting President Juan Guaidó is the surveillance Cubans are doing. What is keeping [Nicolas] Maduro going is Cuba’s logistical support.”

Another potential reason for such a re-designation is Cuba’s refusal so far to extradite Colombian leaders of the guerilla group ELN — in Havana for currently suspended peace negotiations —for suspected involvement in. last week’s fatal car bombing in Bogota. The Cuban government, however, condemned the attack, but said it would follow the protocols agreed at the start of peace negotiations in 2017. These provide security guarantees for guerrilla commanders to return to Colombia or Venezuela within 15 days of an end to talks and bar military offensives for 72 hours. [2]

Reactions

This possible re-designation predictably was endorsed by Senator Marco Rubio. He said, “Maduro had ‘bought’ the loyalty of the largely corrupt generals. They are also loyal, by the way, because the Cubans are spying on them. The Cuban intelligence agencies quickly pick up on any of these military officers that are being disloyal or expressing doubts and those guys are arrested. There has been a massive purge of Venezuelan military officers over the last two years … And it wasn’t because of corruption … It was because the Cubans caught them and reported them.”

According to William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert and American University professor, “Putting Cuba back on the list of state sponsors of international terrorism would not have a major practical impact on Cuba because almost all the financial sanctions that such a designation entails are already in place under the broader Cuban embargo. However, Cuba would take it as a great insult, and it would certainly have an extremely negative effect on state-to-state cooperation on issues of mutual interest.”

LeoGrande added, ““The Cuban government certainly recognizes that Maduro’s situation is dire and the worst outcome for Cuba would be complete regime collapse through civil violence or external military intervention. Regime collapse would probably mean an immediate end to Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba — a blow to [Cuba’s] already fragile economy. Cuba would be willing to help find a negotiated political solution to the Venezuelan crisis . . . but only if both Maduro and the opposition are willing to seek such a solution. At the moment, neither side seems willing to accept any compromise. As a result, the Cubans are essentially stuck with Maduro, even as the chances for his survival diminish.”

Another U.S. expert on Cuba, Ted Henken, a professor at Baruch College, said, “Returning Cuba to the list could be disastrous for the Cuban economy because it would scare away desperately needed foreign investments, already very small.”

Background

The State Department summarizes the statutory requirements for “state sponsor of terrorism” as a state that has been “determined [by the Secretary of State] to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.” [3]

The Cuban government was on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism from 1982 until 2015, when the Obama administration ruled the island was no longer supporting terrorist organizations. More specifically, the State Department in April 2015 stated its recommendation to President Obama for rescission “reflects the Department’s assessment that Cuba meets the criteria established by Congress for rescission . . . . whether Cuba provided any support for international terrorism during the previous six months, and whether Cuba has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.” This conclusion was based, in part, upon “corroborative assurances received from the Government of Cuba. [4]

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[1] Gamez Torres, U.S. considers putting Cuba on terror list over island’s support of Maduro, Miami Herald (Jan. 25, 2019).

[2[ Reuters, Cuba Urges Colombia, ELN Rebels to Follow Peace Talks Protocol, N.Y. times (Jan. 26, 2019).

[3] State Dep’t, State Sponsor of Terrorism. The three statues are section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act, section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act, and section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act.

[4] President Obama Rescinds U.S. Designation of Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism,” dwkcommentaries.com (April 15, 2015). See also other posts listed in the “Cuba: State Sponsor of Terrorism?” section of List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical (CUBA).

Secretary of State Pompeo Criticizes Cuba for Supporting Venezuela’s Maduro     

On January 24 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a lengthy address at the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States denouncing Nicolas Maduro’s reign in Venezuela and defending the U.S. recognition of National Assembly President Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela.[1]

Toward the end of his remarks, Pompeo said the following:

  • “Our support for Venezuela’s democratic hopes and dreams is in sharp contrast to the authoritarian regimes across the globe who have lined up to prop up former President Maduro. And there is no regime which has aided and abetted Maduro’s tyranny like the one in Havana. Maduro’s illegitimate rule was for years sustained by an influx of Cuban security and intelligence officials. They schooled Venezuela’s secret police in the dark arts of torture, repression, and citizen control. Maduro was a fine student at the Cuban academy of oppression.” (Emphasis added.)

Unfortunately this statement is consistent with the Trump Administration’s increasingly harsh rhetoric against Cuba.

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[1] State Dep’t, [Pompeo] Remarks at the Organization of American States (Jan. 24, 2019); OAS, Regular Meeting of the Permanent Council, January 24th, 2019.

White Anxiety and Fearing Immigration     

My prior post about the U.S. need for immigrants also mentioned the fear many Americans have of immigration. Although I favor immigration, I did not make explicit one of the reasons why many white Americans fear immigration.

Now Pat Buchanan has made it explicit. Last week on the Laura Ingraham show when he said that the demographic danger facing whiteness “is the great issue of our time. And, the real question is whether Europe has the will and the capacity, and America has the capacity to halt the invasion of the countries until they change the character — political, social, racial, ethnic — character of the country entirely.” He added, “You cannot stop these sentiments of people who want to live together with their own and they want their borders protected.”[1]

Buchanan expanded on this point on his blog, “The existential question, however, thus remains: How does the West, America included, stop the flood tide of migrants before it alters forever the political and demographic character of our nations and our civilization?”[2]

This prompted the New York Times columnist Charles Blow, an African-American man, to observe: “Make no mistake here, Buchanan is talking about protecting white dominance, white culture, white majorities and white power.”

According to Blow, we are seeing “white extinction anxiety, white displacement anxiety, white minority anxiety.” Some white Americans have “conflated America with whiteness, and therefore a loss of white primacy becomes a loss of American identity.”

This fear, says Blow, underlies many aspects of the Trump Administration: “immigration policy, voter suppression, Trump economic isolationist impulses, his contempt for people from Haiti and Africa, the Muslim ban, his rage over Black Lives Matter and social justice protests. Everything.”

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[1] Blow, White Extinction Anxiety, N.Y. Times  (June 24, 2018).

[2] Buchanan, Trump and the Invasion of the West (June 19, 2018)

More Unkind Words About Cuba from Vice President Mike Pence

On Monday night (June 4), U.S. Vice President Mike Pence hosted a reception at the White House for delegates to the OAS General Assembly, which met June 4 and 5 with most attention on the U.S.-led effort to suspend Venezuela’s OAS membership.[1]

Most of Pence’s remarks at the reception, therefore, concerned Venezuela. But he managed to interject these unkind words about Cuba: “In Cuba, the Castro name has begun to fade, but under a handpicked successor, their legacy endures and the oppressive police state they established is ever-present.  Under President Donald Trump, America will always stand for Que Viva Cuba Libre.”[2]

Conclusion

Those of us who support normalization and reconciliation with Cuba need to be vigilant in monitoring and combatting the anti-Cuba policies and rhetoric from the Trump Administration and its allies like Senator Marco Rubio (Rep., FL).

This blogger leaves to others the challenge of doing the same with respect to Venezuela.[3]

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[1] White House, Remarks by Vice President Pence at Organization of American States Reception (June 4, 2018).

[2] Such rhetoric from Pence is not unique, just this year, as discussed in earlier posts: U.S.-Cuba Skirmishes at the Summit of the Americas (April 17, 2018); U.S. Reactions to the New President of Cuba (April 23, 2018); More Hostile Comments About Cuba from U.S. Vice President Pence and U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States (May 9, 2018).

[3] A prior post mentioned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s anti-Cuba rhetoric at the first day of the OAS General Assembly on June 4 while also discussing the Assembly’s consideration of the Venezuela issue. (U.S. Statement About Cuba at Organization of American States’ General Assembly (June 4, 2018).)

More Details on Cuba’s Foreign Tourism

During the first quarter of 2018, 95,520 U.S. citizens visited Cuba, which was 40 percent fewer than came in the same quarter of 2017. This “is hurting this island’s access to hard cash and setting back the effort to reestablish ties between U.S. citizens and Cubans.“.[1]

The Cubans most adversely affect by this decline are ”the very Cubans the Trump administration has vowed to defend here — small-business owners looking to inject a dose of the free market into the economy.” They are “Airbnb hosts, the owners of small restaurants and art galleries, and tour operators.” Indeed, “unlike many European visitors to Cuba, the American newcomers largely eschewed the package tours that corralled tourists at big, beachfront hotels and assembly-line restaurants. Instead, the Americans spent more time exploring the colonial streets of Old Havana on their own” and patronizing the newer privately-owned businesses

Yes, there has been an increase in foreigners arriving on the island on cruise ships, 177,000 this quarter versus 38,000 in 2017’s first quarter, but they “spent relatively little money onshore.”[2]

Another positive development for Cuban tourism generally, but not the Cuban entrepreneurs, according to the Reuters article, are recent announcements of new hotels by foreign “hospitality companies including Spain’s Melia Hotels International and Iberostar Hotels & Resorts; Singapore’s Banyan Tree Holdings Ltd., Apollo Global Management LLC’s Diamond Resorts International Inc.;” and “Louvre Hotels SAS, a French subsidiary of China’s state-owned Jinn Jiang International Hotels Development Co, one of the world’s largest.”

The construction of such new hotels, however, is “generally carried out jointly with the Cuban Government and especially with the military , which controls a good part of the island’s tourism sector.” For example, “there are currently five new five-star hotels under construction in Havana, owned by the Gaviota Corporation -a military company-, and will be administered by foreign firms.”[3]

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[1] Faiola, In Cuba, the Great American tourism boom goes bust, Wash. Post (May 11, 2018); Drop in Foreign Tourists for Cuba, dwkcommentaries.com April 25, 2018).

[2] Reuters, Despite Hurricanes and Trump, Cuba Retains Charm for Foreign Tourism Firms, N.Y. Times (May 11, 2018).

[3] The Government and the military will continue to make cash with tourism, Diario de Cuba (May 11, 2018).