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Posted on Thu, Mar. 14, 2002 in
The Miami Herald
MADRID, Spain - (AP) -- Spain will require transit visas for Cubans who stop
over en route to another country, seeking to end a flood of asylum requests from
Cuban travelers at Madrid's airport.
The new policy goes into effect Friday, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
Spain informed Cuba of the policy change in late January, and talk of it in
Havana led to a surge in arrivals of purportedly Moscow-bound Cubans using a
refueling stop in Madrid to request political asylum in Spain.
More than 200 arrived over the weekend on separate flights, reportedly the
biggest number in years.
The newspaper El Pais said they had been allowed to leave the airport over
the course of the week, but the Foreign Ministry said it could not confirm this.
The Spanish government says the number of Cubans who have requested
political asylum in Spain has gone from 178 in 1999 to 3,000 in 2001.
More than 99 percent are classified here as so-called economic emigrants
rather than political refugees.
Cubans fleeing poverty use flights to Moscow as escape routes because Russia
is one of the few destinations they can aim for relatively easily. All they need
is a letter from someone in Russia inviting them there, and money for air fare
and an exit permit, according to the Cuban Center, an aid group in Madrid.
Unlike applicants from other countries, most Cubans are allowed to enter
Spain on humanitarian grounds, and given two months to try to obtain a residency
permit that will allow them to work legally.
But such residency permits are virtually impossible to get under Spain's
strict new immigration law, so many Cubans end up living here illegally and
working clandestinely at low-paying jobs with no health care or other benefits.
The opposition Socialist Party has called on the government to explain its
treatment of Cubans. ''We have reason to fear that the government washes its
hands of them after letting them in,'' said Consuelo Rumi, the party's director
of social and immigrant affairs.
Versión
original en español
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