The United States Issues 20,000 Immigrant Visas to Cuban Citizens in FiscalYear 2003

The United States issued more than 20,000 immigrant visas to Cuban nationals in Fiscal Year 2003 (October 2002 through September 2003). Under the Migration Accords with Cuba, the Department of State is obligated to ensure that a minimum of 20,000 Cubans are documented for travel to the United States for permanent residence each year. The United States is committed to safe, legal and orderly migration from Cuba and to protecting our nation’s borders through a sound migration policy.

The burden is now clearly on the Cuban government to grant exit permits to all those Cubans who have received U.S. travel documents and to remove impediments it has placed to full implementation of the Accords. In particular, we call on the Cuban Government to cease its discriminatory practices of denying such permits to doctors, information technology professionals, and family members of Cubans who have sought freedom in the United States. At the last round of Migration Talks in June 2003, we identified over 600 individual cases of Cubans unfairly denied exit permits.