from news sources
Cuban refugee Jorge Pérez Fernández has the promise in writing: the Spanish government will grant him political asylum or residency within six months of his arrival in Spain.
Fourteen months after he landed in Madrid, he has neither — a harsh lesson on the vagaries of Spanish migration laws that he has already passed on to the former political prisoners who arrived from Havana in the past weeks.
“I told them to stay alert,” said Pérez, who has launched a hunger strike to push for a resolution of his case: he’s an undocumented migrant who can’t work legally and gets no government aid.
“Economically speaking, I am totally defenseless,” said the 42-year-old architect from the eastern Cuban town of Banes, who arrived from the Guantánamo naval base and now lives in Spain’s Canary Islands.
Jorge Graupera, a Cuban-born Madrid lawyer who specializes in immigration cases, is not surprised by Pérez’s case or by the many questions surrounding the status of the 23 ex-prisoners and 100 relatives who arrived from Havana since July 12.
Outside Spanish Laws
“There’s a lot of confusion, even among immigration lawyers. We have never seen anything like this . . . because this has jumped outside the [Spanish] laws,” said the lawyer, whose firm, Legal City, has offered to advise the former prisoners and relatives.
Graupera noted the Cubans arrived under a Spanish government agreement to give immediate entry to any of the 52 political prisoners that Cuba has promised to free, and who wish to move to Spain — not as part of any standard immigration proceedings.
The leader of the Ladies in White in Cuba, Laura Pollán, says Cuba may not free as many political prisoners as it claims it will, and noted that if the prisoners were sent into forced exile, there could be no talk of an “advancement of human rights” in her country.
Spanish officials say they have offered the Cubans the best immigration status available, Assisted International Protection. That allows them to apply for permanent residency (which includes a work permit), the possibility of returning to Cuba if Havana permits it, and Spanish citizenship in four to five years.
Spain also has offered assistance with rent, clothes, food, transport, jobs, education and health services, as well as pocket money — 85.27 euros a month per couple (about $110), 18.58 for children under 18 and 32.79 for older dependents.
Some of the ex-prisoners have said they might instead apply for political asylum, which could make it easier to reunite in Spain with other relatives now still in Cuba, said Gustavo Fuentes, a Cuban-born Madrid lawyer who is advising Pérez.
Relocation to United States Complex
Further complicating the issue: at least four of the ex-prisoners have said they might want to move on to the United States. But they would not qualify for U.S. political asylum once they have obtained residency or asylum in Spain. And applying for U.S. migrant visas would take at least three to five years, lawyers said. If they become Spanish citizens, they would not need U.S. visas for trips.
Relatives of some of the dissidents still in Cuban jails have said they do not want to go to Spain but might consider leaving for the United States — though that seems to be another tough option.
It usually takes three to five years for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana to issue entry permits as political refugees to those who qualify, Berta Soler said. Her husband, Angel Moya, is one in a Cuban prison, serving a 20-year sentence.