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The wet foot, dry foot policy is the name given to a consequence of the 1995 revision of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 that essentially says that anyone who fled Cuba and entered the United States would be allowed to pursue residency a year later. After talks with the Cuban government, the Clinton administration came to an agreement with Cuba that it would stop admitting people intercepted in U.S. waters. Since then, in what has become known as the "Wet foot, Dry foot" policy, a Cuban caught on the waters between the two nations (with "wet feet") would summarily be sent home or to a third country. One who makes it to shore ("dry feet") gets a chance to remain in the United States, and later would qualify for expedited "legal permanent resident" status and eventually U.S. citizenship. ==Background== Between 1960 and 1980, hundreds to thousands of Cubans entered the United States under Attorney General's parole authority, many of them arriving by boat. In 1982, a mass migration of asylum seekers—known as the Mariel boatlift—brought approximately 125,000 Cubans (and 25,000 Haitians) to South Florida over a six-month period. After declining for several years, Cuban "boat people" steadily rose from a few hundred in 1989 to a few thousand in 1993. After Castro made threatening speeches in 1994, riots ensued in Havana, and the Cuban exodus by boat escalated. The number of Cubans intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard or the U.S. Border Patrol reached a post-Mariel high of 37,191 in 1994. Until 1995, the United States generally had not repatriated Cubans (except certain criminal aliens on a negotiated list) under a policy established when the government became Communist within two years of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Not only the United States has been reluctant to repatriate people to Cuba, but also the Cuban government typically has also refused to accept Cuban migrants who are excludable under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) (Cubans who have been convicted of crimes in the United States pose complex problems, as Cuba is among a handful of nations that does not generally accept the return of criminal aliens). "Normalizing" migration between the two nations was the stated purpose of the migration agreement enacted by the Clinton Administration on September 9, 1994, when the U.S. policy toward Cuban migrants was altered significantly. The plan's objectives of safe, legal, and orderly immigration relied on six points. *The United States agreed to no longer permit Cubans intercepted at sea to come to the United States; rather, Cubans would be placed in a safe haven camp in a third location. Justifying this policy as a "safety of life at sea" issue, Cuba also agreed to use "persuasive methods" to discourage people from setting sail. *United States and Cuba reaffirmed their support for the United Nations General Assembly resolution on alien smuggling. They pledged to cooperate in the prevention of the illegal transport of migrants and the use of violence or "forcible divergence" to reach the United States. *The United States agreed to admit no fewer than 20,000 immigrants from Cuba annually, not including the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. *The United States and Cuba agreed to cooperate on the voluntary return of Cubans who arrived in the United States or were intercepted at sea. *The United States and Cuba did not reach an agreement on how to handle Cubans who are excluded by the INA agreed to continue discussing the matter. (Grounds for removal include health-related grounds; criminal grounds; national security grounds; Nazi prosecution grounds; public charge grounds; illegal entry and immigration law violations; and lack of proper immigration documents.) *The United States and Cuba agreed to review the implementation of this agreement and engage in further discussions. It became apparent that the 20,000 minimum level per year could not be met through the INA preference system or the refugee provisions because of the eligibility criteria. In addition to those Cubans who may qualify to immigrate through the INA preference system and who may qualify as refugees, the United States decided to use other authority in the law (i.e., parole), to allow Cubans to come to the United States and become legal permanent residents through the Cuban Adjustment Act. Specifically, a "visa lottery" program was established to randomly select who, among the many Cubans seeking to migrate, receives a visa. As part of the effort to enact this agreement, Operations Safe Haven and Safe Passage were executed to alleviate overcrowding at Guantanamo Bay by using temporary camps in Panama. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wet feet, dry feet policy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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