Joe Biden Finds Some Refugees He Doesn't Want: Cubans Seeking Freedom From Communism

The Biden administration dismantled every policy initiated under President Trump to discourage illegal border crossings. Swiftly and without pretense there seemed to be a lighted sign screaming “Welcome,” and the cartels took that message to potential migrants. There have been successive months of record border crossings and Customs and Border Patrol only apprehend a fraction of those who come. Migrants at the border have been frank. They are looking for economic opportunities and they believe Biden will let them in.

In June, the Biden administration ended the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the Remain in Mexico policy. It also scrapped the Safe Third Country agreements with Central American countries, which required migrants to seek refuge in Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador before applying for asylum in the United States. High crime rates in a migrant’s home country and economic motivations are not grounds for asylum, according to the immigration law, and the Trump administration enforced this.

Political and religious persecution are legitimate reasons to request asylum. Right now in Cuba, at least 100 people have disappeared amid protests against the communist regime. The regime has cut off Internet access, and when dissidents have been able to break through the suppression, they have been cut short by Cuban security services. Government agents have even dressed in civilian clothing to arrest and beat protestors. President Biden took over 24 hours, but he finally made a statement amid pressure from Republican lawmakers like Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Despite the silence of the Squad and the Sanders wing of the Democrat Party, Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) came out in support of Biden’s current Cuba policy, which mirrors President Trump’s more than President Obama’s:

Sen. Bob Menendez, the Democratic chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Cuba hard-liner, commended Biden for keeping Trump’s sanctions in place.

“The regime needs to understand that change [in Cuba] will bring about a change in sanctions,” Menendez said. Adding that since Cubans have now taken to the streets, “the administration will have to look at options they can exercise in support of the Cuban people.”

Menendez may be disappointed by the Biden administration’s tone now. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who fled Cuba with his family in 1960, made a statement Tuesday evening and said that Cuban asylum seekers would be resettled in a third country even if they establish a fear of being persecuted. The same will happen to Haitian asylum seekers as the country sinks into chaos following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise. “The time is never right to attempt migration by sea,” Mayorkas said. “To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking. Allow me to be clear. If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.”

Cuban citizens waving American flags as a symbol of freedom while they oppose an oppressive regime will hear those words from a Biden administration official, while economic migrants, mainly from Central America, are pouring over our border in record numbers. The Biden administration has dismantled every policy that would require those migrants to seek refuge in a third country or remain in Mexico for the duration of their asylum claims. The Biden administration will send those seeking political asylum from Cuba to another country.

From 1995 until the Obama administration, Cubans who made it to America were granted residency a year later under the “Wet Foot, Dry Foot” policy. As a nation, we understood the ongoing horror the regime in Cuba visited upon its citizens. Obama ended the policy when he granted the murderous Castro regime credibility through his foreign policy agenda:

This is because of the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy, which since 1995 has granted Cubans who touch American soil a privilege not afforded other immigrants who come without a visa: the right to stay and get on a fast track to citizenship.

This special treatment ended this week when, in the final days of his administration, President Obama announced an abrupt end to the policy, a capstone to his two-year-old effort to re-establish relations with Cuba.

Now, amid a fight for liberty and freedom, Cubans will be denied refuge by the Biden administration, despite its non-existent deterrents and barriers along the southern border. Many Americans may ask why. Even the folks at Foreign Policy have figured it out:

As other southern U.S. states turn Democratic-leaning, the state of Florida—and its large population of Cuban Americans—has become a must-win state for Republicans thinking about a White House run. A poll of Florida-based Cuban Americans taken in March underlines the community’s importance as a Republican constituency: 62 percent supported former U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 election while 40 percent said they did not accept the results of that election.

At this moment, the treatment of Cuban dissidents should anger all Americans who fled authoritarian regimes from countries such as Venezuela, China, North Korea, and Zimbabwe. Democrats no longer want new Americans who can see the early stages of a turn toward something authoritarian. If the Squad and their rhetoric make you recoil, you know too much. The Biden administration prefers future citizens they believe will vote for their party.

However, Democrats should beware. As migrants flood over the border from their favored countries, they will see the increasing violence in our cities and the very cartels they fled encroaching in Democrat-led states like California. President Trump didn’t flip longtime Democrat areas of Texas for no reason. And McAllen, Texas, did not just elect a Republican mayor by accident. Immigrant communities are some of the most affected by an open-border and anti-law-enforcement rhetoric, all coming from Democrats and the Biden administration.

Demographics is only destiny if you care about your voters after they arrive. As an increasing number of districts along the border prove that simply leaving the door open is not enough.

WATCH Secretary Mayorkas’s full comments