Over the phone, seventy-eight-year-old Jorge Sáez Rodríguez describes himself as a self-proclaimed grateful guy who is still full of life. He speaks of recently discovering the alcoholic beverage Fireball and his love for America. Granddaughter Paola Rodríguez describes him as “a great guy, kind of a yapper, and socially outgoing.” Not only that, but he is also a “Jokester who loves to drink his Whiskey.” The son of a Cuban doctor, Jorge Sáez Rodríguez, migrated to the U.S. at sixteen, 62 years ago. “You’d live in fear every day,” he says of his time in Cuba. Despite his love of the country and the people there, he speaks of his fear of persecution by government officials and a lack of opportunities. 

 

Not only was persecution a fear for Rodríguez but also what would happen to his family. “You couldn’t talk to anyone because your parents were always at risk,” he says. “If what you said went against the government’s ideals, your parents would be imprisoned.” As a child, government control was a massive issue for Rodríguez, especially after Fidel Castro came to power. A Cuban revolutionary who established a communist government in Cuba, Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista’s regime in 1959.

 

Attending Catholic school in Cuba, Rodríguez remembers one Catholic priest deliberately telling people to leave after Castro gained authority. After the Catholic school Rodríguez attended was closed, he attended public school, where he spoke of restrictions placed on students and limitations on what they could or couldn’t do. “When I went to school, I wasn’t happy. They were trying to pressure me to do things I didn’t want to do,” he says. “You couldn’t talk to anyone because they were going to say that you were against Cuba.” Rodríguez was pressured to cut sugar cane, pick cotton in fields, and complete additional assignments for the government while attending public school.

 

Eventually, in 1962, he decided to migrate to the United States. Rodríguez’s family was waiting for him in Miami at the time. He describes the migration process as pretty straightforward for him. “You went to the embassy of the United States and asked for a Visa,” he explains. “In six months, you could be out of Cuba.” Despite having to wait for a telegram to confirm the status of his Visa, he didn’t face any extreme difficulties.

 

It was only a short time before Rodríguez arrived in Miami and then moved to New Orleans, where he attended high school. Although Rodríguez didn’t live in Miami for long, he describes it as a place that felt safe and welcoming upon coming to the United States. “I went to Miami, and they found me a home,” he says. Later in life, Rodríguez moved to Puerto Rico, where he took a position working at a water treatment facility and would start a family. “I admire the Puerto Rican people,” he explains. “They are floating between Latin America and the U.S.; they believe in democracy and are very friendly.”

 

Rodríguez migrated before the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966. William LeoGrande, former dean of the American University School of Public Affairs and expert on Latin American politics, explains that “anyone coming from a communist country was regarded as a political refugee and was allowed into the United States in the early 1960s.” LeoGrande says that it wasn’t until the Cuban Adjustment Act legalized the status of those people that Cuban migrants could apply as permanent residents and seek citizenship in the United States. 

 

LeoGrande speaks on Carter’s administration and how immigration became slightly more difficult for Cubans. He explains that a new immigration law during his presidency would no longer recognize immigrants from a communist country as political refugees and would instead be on a case-by-case basis. “To claim political asylum, you had to show that you had an individual fear of persecution,” he says. Isabelle DeSisto, a former research student at the University of Havana and scholar on migration and regime types in Cuba, describes a mass migration of Cubans to the United States at this time. 

 

DeSisto describes the Mariel boatlift as a big wave of Cuban migration that left by boat when the Cuban economy failed. She notes that people who migrated during the Mariel boatlift tended to be poorer and less wealthy than the earlier wave of migrants. The journey was also incredibly dangerous for this group of Cubans. LeoGrande explains that “some estimates are that half the people that set out on rafts didn’t make it.”

 

LeoGrande also notes that thousands of Cuban migrants came to the United States during the Rafter Crisis in 1994. “The Clinton administration felt like it needed to sort of put a stop to this,” he explains. As a result, President Bill Clinton implemented the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy in 1995. LeoGrande mentions that if you made it to the United States under the policy, you were a dry foot and got to stay and could apply as a permanent resident. However, if you were picked up at sea, you were either sent back to Cuba or detained at the migration detention center, Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo Bay is located in the southeastern part of Cuba and controlled by the U.S. “There are stories of people getting caught three, four, or five times and sent back to Cuba,” he says. 

 

DeSisto elaborates that after being elected president, Obama abolished the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy to normalize relations with Cuba. Now, she speaks of more rigorous migration policies in the United States that follow regular lawful procedures. The real issue, LeoGrande argues, is the backlog of asylum applications that takes years. “Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans can petition to adjust their status to become permanent residents, and then their asylum claim is irrelevant,” he says. “Of the 750,000 some-odd Cubans that have arrived in the United States in the last three years, almost all of them have come through that mechanism.” 

 

Despite the evolution of Cuban migration policies, Rodríguez recognizes that he is fortunate to have left when he did. “I came here, and I was happy,” he explains. Although Rodríguez loves the United States, a piece of his heart remains in Cuba. “I love this country and would like to return to Cuba,” he says. “The people that put me out were the Cuban people.” Nowadays, Rodríguez describes that tourists are the only people who get to go back. Regardless of fantasizing about his return, he remembers how controlling the government was when he lived there and the disastrous economy. 

 

When speaking about the United States, Rodríguez isn’t afraid to preach his love for it. “You live in the best democracy in the world,” he says. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best.”