Subject Area
Civil Rights and Discrimination Law; Labor and Employment Law; Law; Immigration Law; International Law
Abstract
This Note analyzes the CAA and the Wet Foot/Dry Foot policy and assesses whether the justifications for enactment support the continuation of the policies today. Part II describes the history of United States-Cuban relations. Part III traces the evolution of United States-Cuban migration policy, including the enactment of the CAA and the signing of the 1994 Joint Communiqué, which gave rise to the current Wet Foot/Dry Foot policy. Part IV details how these policies incentivize smuggling. Part V demonstrates how together these policies create defenses to the crime of smuggling a Cuban citizen and examines whether Congress intended for such a result in drafting the smuggling statute. Part VI recounts the historical justifications for the CAA and considers whether these justifications have any place in modern United States-Cuban policy. Finding that the historical justifications do not outweigh the smuggling and national security issues created by the CAA, Part VII advocates for the repeal of the Act. This Note concludes that the CAA is no longer utilitarian and should be repealed in favor of a more pragmatic approach wherein Cubans migrate only through proper immigration channels.
Recommended Citation
Heather Reynolds,
Irreconcilable Regulations: Why the Sun Has Set on the Cuban Adjustment Act in Florida,
63 Fla. L. Rev.
1013
(2011).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol63/iss4/6
