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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 71 (Tuesday, May 2, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5942-S5944]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

         THE ATTORNEY GENERAL'S ANNOUNCEMENT ON CUBAN MIGRATION

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, it had not been my intention to speak at 
this moment but I happened to be on the floor and heard the Senator 
from North Carolina. I would like, if I could, to put 
[[Page S5943]]  in context what the Attorney General announced at noon 
today.
  The first component of the announcement was that the United States 
would adopt a new policy relative to those detainees who are currently 
being held at the naval station at Guantanamo Bay. For some background, 
in the late summer and early fall of 1994, a large exodus of Cubans 
commenced from that island and were interdicted by United States Coast 
Guard and some military vessels. The decision was made by the U.S. 
Government at that time to establish a safe haven at Guantanamo Naval 
Station, to which in excess of 30,000 persons who had been interdicted 
at sea were subsequently taken.
  In September 1994, the United States Government, as part of what has 
been a continuing negotiation with the Cuban Government, held 
negotiations on the specific and limited and singular topic of 
immigration. As a result of that, an agreement was reached. Parts of 
that agreement provided that the United States would provide no less 
than 20,000 visas per year for Cubans wishing to come legally to the 
United States, and would do so through a process administered by the 
United States interest section in Havana. Also, as part of that 
agreement, the Cuban Government agreed to undertake those steps which 
would be necessary in order to prevent a continuation or restart of a 
mass exodus from Cuba.
  Over time, the U.S. Government determined that there were three 
categories of persons at Guantanamo who deserved to be granted parole 
in the United States, those three being families with children, the 
elderly, and those who had serious medical problems. Under those three 
categories of parole, approximately 7,000 to 8,000 persons have been 
paroled into the United States thus far. There are another 2,000 to 
3,000 to be paroled into the United States. That will leave at 
Guantanamo a population of approximately 15,000, plus or minus, which 
will be composed largely of single males, older adolescents, and young 
adults.
  Over the past several months, there has been growing concern about 
what will happen at Guantanamo when we end up with that population. 
Recently, first privately and increasingly publicly, the 
representatives of the U.S. military--including General Sheehan, who is 
the Commander, Atlantic Command, which has responsibility for the U.S. 
military interests in the Caribbean--indicated that they felt it would 
be a very serious situation with potential for riots or other major 
unrest.
  I personally have visited Guantanamo twice since it has been a 
principal safe haven for at one time Haitians, then mixed Haitians and 
Cubans, and now primarily Cubans. I concur, as a lay person, in what I 
observed at Guantanamo: It is a very stark environment. Many would 
think Guantanamo would look like their vision of a Caribbean island. It 
is not. It is a very formidable, rocky, dry, arid place where cactus is 
more prominent than palm trees. There is great concern about the 
potential of having a large number of persons of a young male status, 
without any hope or expectations for their future, being detained for 
an extended period under those circumstances.
  I might say, this Senate spoke to that issue itself just a few weeks 
ago when the Department of Defense requested a supplemental 
appropriation of over $50 million in order to enhance the conditions at 
Guantanamo--things like putting in permanent showers and bathroom 
facilities where currently portable facilities are being utilized. The 
Senate elected not to fund that supplemental appropriation and 
expressed in its declination to do so the need for the United States to 
determine what its long-term policy was going to be relative to the 
detainees at Guantanamo.
  So we have had the opportunity as a Senate to speak on this issue, 
and what we said to the administration was: Come up with a policy of 
how to deal with this situation before we commit an additional $50 
million on top of the $1 million a day we are spending in order to 
maintain the population which is currently at Guantanamo.
  Another part of this very unfortunate situation was the fact that 
there is great concern in the United States about the increasing number 
of immigrants. What seemed to be a strategy that would try to maximize 
the positives and minimize what are inherently going to be negatives in 
this situation was a policy that said let us take some of those 20,000 
visas a year we are committed to offer through the interest section in 
Havana, and let us shift those to Guantanamo and assign those to those 
persons who, on a case-by-case basis, can meet the standards of entry 
to the United States. That has seemed to me for a number of months to 
be a rational policy, one not without risk or problems, but better than 
a set of unhappy other alternatives that face the United States.
  I am pleased the administration did not wait until we had a riot at 
Guantanamo in order to act; that the administration essentially took 
the direction which this Senate had given, to state what our long-term 
policy was going to be vis-a-vis Guantanamo. That policy will be that 
over the next 3 years, we will shift visas from the interest section in 
Havana to Guantanamo, to begin the process of depopulating Guantanamo. 
Those who meet our standards will receive one of the visas for entry to 
the United States. Those who do not meet our standards will be sent 
back to Cuba.
  The major concern about that policy was the concern that is referred 
to as remagnetizing Guantanamo. If you depopulate Guantanamo through 
this process but in the course of that you create such a strong impetus 
for people to go to Guantanamo and it refills, then you are back to 
where you are today.
  The Cuban Government has restated its commitment of last September; 
that is, that it will enforce against mass exodus from the island. The 
United States, now having said we will not take people to Guantanamo as 
a safe haven, the policy which the Attorney General announced today is 
that those persons who are interdicted at sea will be given an on-board 
screening at sea to determine if they have a legitimate claim of 
political asylum.
  If they have such a legitimate claim for political asylum, they will 
be given a special processing commensurate with that status and with 
our history of humanitarian outreach to political asylees and our 
obligations under international law.
  If they do not meet that standard, then they will be returned 
directly to Cuba. That is a provision of this which causes great 
concern to many people, including myself. I recognize the long history 
that the United States has had relative to a special relationship with 
the people of Cuba. This policy was taken as what was considered to be 
a necessary backstop to the steps to depopulate Guantanamo without, in 
the process of depopulating, creating the very impetus that would 
repopulate it.
  Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of the legislation that the Senator 
from North Carolina has introduced. I was the principal Senate sponsor 
of the Cuban Democracy Act, which today represents the basis of United 
States policy toward Cuba. That policy, as the President stated, is 
unchanged. That policy is one of economic and political isolation of 
Cuba as the most appropriate United States policy for purposes of 
closing down the 35-year nightmare which Fidel Castro has represented 
to the people of Cuba.
  It is a policy that says we will outline with specificity and with 
compassion what our policy will be toward the people of Cuba during 
this reign of terror of Fidel Castro, and we will stipulate what our 
policy will be upon Castro's fall, to reintegrate a democratic and free 
Cuba into the international family of peace-loving nations and 
eliminate the one blotch that remains on the map of democracies of the 
Western Hemisphere, which is Cuba.
  That was the essence of the Cuban Democracy Act. The legislation 
which I am cosponsoring with the Senator from North Carolina extends 
those principles toward the same goal of a rapid, hopefully peaceful 
transition of Cuba from the tyranny that exists today to a free and 
democratic government.
  The decision the President made today was a difficult one. It 
represents a selection among a series of difficult choices. I respect 
the fact he did not wait for a crisis to make the decision. He has made 
it firmly. He has done what will achieve, I think, the maximum national 
security benefits to the 
[[Page S5944]]  United States in terms of our military base at 
Guantanamo.
  The U.S. Department of Defense supported this proposition. It will 
allow Guantanamo to return to its role as an important part of our 
hemispheric security. It will not serve as a magnet for future buildup 
and diversion from its military use. It will stop almost $1 million a 
day of expenditure that we have been making at Guantanamo.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 
2 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, there were some difficult decisions that 
had to be made around that core judgment. The result of the series of 
decisions will be: First that there will be no increase of total Cuban 
immigration into the United States, legal Cuban immigration, beyond 
that to which the United States was already committed.
  Second, that immigration will now come from two streams, partially 
from Havana and partially from those persons who are at Guantanamo.
  Third, the American people will be assured that only people from 
either place--Havana or Guantanamo--who will enter the United States 
will be those who meet our standards for entry.
  Fourth, steps have been taken to demagnetize Guantanamo for further 
population buildup.
  Within that policy, the American principle of recognition of 
political asylum and provision for those persons who seek freedom to 
make the case that they are seeking freedom out of the basis of a 
legitimate fear of political persecution will be maintained. They will 
be afforded that opportunity. The Attorney General outlined in summary 
form today what those steps will be.
  So, Mr. President, I appreciate the leadership which the President 
has taken in making a difficult decision. I believe this Senate should 
appreciate the fact that he has responded to our request for leadership 
on this matter; that the U.S. Department of Defense will now be able to 
return its personnel and facilities to their intended purpose of 
security of the United States; and that we will be able to say that our 
policy of respecting human rights, and particularly respecting the 
rights of those claiming political asylum, will be maintained.
  They are difficult choices, but in my judgment, choices that had to 
be made.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.

             Motion to Reconsider Vote On Amendment No. 603

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, was a motion to reconsider the vote on 
amendment No. 603 made?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion was not made.
  Mr. HELMS. I make such a motion and I move to table the motion.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I may speak for 5 
minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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