They had already even sold their home and were planning on traveling to the United States a month ago. Leoany, 26, and her husband Ramón, 46, have their lives in pause ever since the U.S. government decided to freeze the issuing of visas and consular procedures in its legation in Havana.
Like thousands of Cubans, they were in the final stage of the family reunification process, “petitioned” by Ramón’s brother who lives in Miami and they only needed for their visas to be stamped on the passport to be able to travel.
Today they are breathing with relief after the Department of State announced last week that it will maintain the family reunification program, which enables the permanent residents in the United States to make a petition for their relatives in Cuba to settle over there, although it is still not known when or how it will be applied.
“We already sold everything, that’s why we’re so scared. We even sold the house and are living with my mother while waiting,” said to EFE news agency Leoany, who fortunately still hadn’t resigned from her job in a day-care center.
Residents in Pinar del Río, some 150 kilometers from Havana, Leoany and Ramón have gone to the U.S. embassy for information about their case, although the answer everyone in that situation is getting these days is that they must wait until they are notified.
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Also with life in tenterhooks, Yanelis and her son Pablo, 14 years old and with a degenerative disorder of the muscles, had their visa interview last Thursday prior to granting them the travel permit, but they won’t be able to realize it “until further notice.”
Petitioned by his father who has been living in Texas for six years, Pablo regrets from his wheelchair the “inhuman decision of President Donald Trump” and hopes to be able to move soon to the United States, where he believes he will be able to get medical treatment and rehabilitation for his legs immobilized by the disease.
“We hope everything will be resumed soon because we don’t know what is to become of us. We have already spent so much money in all the paperwork,” said Pablo, who hasn’t seen his father for three years.
Since last September 29, when the U.S. authorities announced the withdrawal of 60 percent of its diplomatic personnel in Havana in response to alleged “acoustic attacks,” the legation only attends emergency cases and froze the granting of new visas.
Since then, thousands of Cubans – 106.351 according to data published by the daily El Nuevo Herald – are in a bureaucratic limbo, with half-finished processes while they wait for a solution to their situation in an embassy with scarce personnel, reduced to the minimum.
The possibility of irregularly immigrating to U.S. territory is no longer in the calculations of many Cubans, after in January then President Barack Obama canceled the “wet foot/dry foot” policy that granted privileges to illegal immigrants coming from the island. The Trump administration has done nothing to reverse that measure.
For the time being the U.S. government has not made Cuba responsible for the mysterious “attacks” that affected the health of about 20 of its diplomats, but doesn’t consider the island a safe place for its citizens and ordered the exit of most of its personnel.
Patricia, a 21-year-old medical student, was waiting to travel to Miami next week to meet up with her husband who has been living there for three years. Her trip has been postponed indefinitely but now she feels more at ease.
“When I heard the news, I lived it with fright, with fear that they would withdraw my case and I couldn’t leave,” she said at the door of the embassy, which she approached to get information.
Danay, 19, in June finished senior high and did not enroll in university because by then she already expected to be installed in the United States with her father, who made the petition for her two years ago.
“I’m living this situation with a lot of stress and anguish because in one moment I saw how all my options were being closed. But a door always opens and let’s hope that the family reunification program reopens soon,” highlights Danay, already calmer after weeks of a lot of tension.
She wants to study theater art in the United States for her dream of becoming an actress to come true and to also reunite with her two brothers and numerous aunts and uncles and cousins who live on the other side of the Straits of Florida.
While waiting for the family reunification program to be reactivated, the issuing of tourist visas seems improbable, although it was the mechanism that served for many Cubans to be able to visit their relatives.
After having paid 160 dollars per each application, Ana and her husband wanted to travel to Miami as tourists to spend a month with their two children who left Cuba 17 years ago.
“We had the interview date for this week but we were told that they are suspended and there are no new dates,” said Ana, who traveled to Havana from her native Camagüey, 520 kilometers from the capital.
Last Friday it was announced that the Cubans who want to apply for an immigrant visa for the United States will have to do so in that country’s embassy in Bogotá.
Sources from the U.S. embassy in Havana confirmed to EFE news agency that in the next weeks they will start transferring to their mission in Colombia the immigrant visa applications that are currently being processed, as well as programming interviews to request immigrant visas by Cuban citizens.
EFE / OnCuba
