Leaving Cuba is the slogan of many on the island, but most want it to be legal. The people who have claimed their family and friends through the humanitarian parole say that they are several months behind schedule.
The protest is a desperate request for people who have their families in Cuba and say that the humanitarian parole process is very delayed. They assure that they spend days of anguish because they no longer know what to do to get their loved ones off the island.
Raúl Cabrera, who asked his son for humanitarian parole, says that “he is crazy to come, to get out of hunger, misery, because that is a disaster.”
Distraught to the point of tears and with a lump in his throat, Raúl talks about his son, whom he has not seen for a year and a half, and he waits for the moment to be able to hug him. “My child weighs 60 pounds, he has turned to bone… he doesn’t think, he doesn’t eat, to come here. And that despairs, of course. What he wants is for his children to have a better life.”
How Raúl, all the Cubans who protested this Sunday in front of the Versailles restaurant, did so with a message for the immigration and citizenship department because they say they see the reunification that they want so much delayed.
Lainez Rodríguez, sponsor through the humanitarian parole, specifies that “more than 400,000 families are waiting. It is always the same answer, that they are complying with the chronological order and the random order, but in the situation in Cuba they are not complying with that chronological order.
Antonio Ramos, a lawyer specializing in immigration matters, assures that “there are 500 a day in order of arrival of the application … and 500 a day in order of lottery. That is why it seems that one, but the queue keeps its rhythm of 500 a day “.
What the sponsors are most concerned about is that the day of the trial arrives and their cases are pending, without prosecution.
“I have asked my mother, my sister, with her husband and two children, my cousin with his wife and child. The country is in complete misery and it is possible to have life in that country,” says Gloria Gardner, sponsor.
Immigration lawyer Antonio Ramos says he understands that with the passing of days and the wait, families become distressed, but he has a suggestion. They must “be calm and patient because the immigration proceedings are processing them and the lawsuits against the parole have not yet started and it may take a long time.”
People demand that the order in which the procedures were presented be respected. Although they acknowledge that no authority has confirmed them, they believe that this order is not respected due to the time that has elapsed since they submitted their paperwork.
