The Gray Lady opposes Cuban doctors becoming US citizens. No really:
In Africa, Cuban doctors are working in American-built facilities. The [Ebola] epidemic has had the unexpected effect of injecting common sense into an unnecessarily poisonous relationship.
And yet, Cuban doctors serving in West Africa today could easily abandon their posts, take a taxi to the nearest American Embassy and apply for a little-known immigration program that has allowed thousands of them to defect. Those who are accepted can be on American soil within weeks, on track to becoming United States citizens.
There is much to criticize about Washington’s failed policies toward Cuba and the embargo it has imposed on the island for decades. But the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, which in the last fiscal year enabled 1,278 Cubans to defect while on overseas assignments, a record number, is particularly hard to justify.
It is incongruous for the United States to value the contributions of Cuban doctors who are sent by their government to assist in international crises like the 2010 Haiti earthquake while working to subvert that government by making defection so easy.
American immigration policy should give priority to the world’s neediest refugees and persecuted people. It should not be used to exacerbate the brain drain of an adversarial nation at a time when improved relations between the two countries are a worthwhile, realistic goal.
“Unexpectedly” though, the Times is perfectly fine with expatriation working in the other direction:
Yup, I gotta confess, that now-famous picture of a U.S. marshal in Miami pointing an automatic weapon toward Donato Dalrymple and ordering him in the name of the U.S. government to turn over Elian Gonzalez warmed my heart. They should put that picture up in every visa line in every U.S. consulate around the world, with a caption that reads: ”America is a country where the rule of law rules. This picture illustrates what happens to those who defy the rule of law and how far our government and people will go to preserve it. Come all ye who understand that.”
And I was also warmed by the picture of Elian back in his father’s arms. Some things you can fake — like a 6-year-old wagging his finger on a homemade video and telling his father to go back to Cuba without him — and some things you can’t fake. That picture of Elian and his father illustrated the very parent-child bond that our law was written to preserve.
— “Foreign Affairs; Reno for President,” Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, April 25, 2000.
And don’t get Friedman started on the joys of dictatorship, or other voices at the Times on the horrors of the American Constitution.
I missed the memo — when did the Times turn into the real-life version of the Onion?
H/T:
Hey, look. The New York Times OPPOSES immigration–from Cuba. I’m not kidding. http://t.co/IovEf7vgM5
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) November 17, 2014
Related: Nicholas Kristof channels his inner Margaret Sanger: “‘Should be stopped’ was code for sterilization, and now we’re seeing its return in a new form. Nicholas Kristof’s column today in the New York Times is right out of the old progressive songbook.”
Has there ever been a new progressive songbook?
More: “New York Times Wants Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants, None for Cuban Doctors Trying to Come Here Legally.” As someone noted on Twitter, perhaps they Gray Lady is afraid that most Cuban doctors will vote (R) upon arrival.
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