The US Embassy in Havana recently issued a statement informing about the “lottery” system implemented in humanitarian releases for Cubans.
The news was announced by Undersecretary for National Security Blas Núñez-Neto in a telephone press conference this month. Let’s look at the details.
In this regard, Núñez-Neto pointed out that the United States had begun “a historic expansion” of legal emigration channels with the probation processes through economic sponsors for nationals of Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela who have already allowed entry into the country . of more than 100,000 people “safe and orderly”.
He also recalled the recent announcement of the “intent to extend family reunification programs” already in place in Cuba to Central American countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Colombia.
However, the official acknowledged “there is tremendous demand in the region for these probation programs” and to “maximize the hope of people who might be elected” they decided to make some changes to the selection process.
“We will implement a process where half of the daily available appointments, ie Of the 1000 quotas processed daily, 500 are processed more or less at random in a lottery‘ the Undersecretary for National Security said.
“Lottery” system to release Cubans on humanitarian grounds
What does it mean that this “lottery” system is implemented in humanitarian parole for Cubans? Well, anyone who waits can be selected, whether they applied in January or May. Five hundred places would be worked “by luck and truth”, as the Cubans say colloquially.
According to the information provided, the other half of the appointments will be processed in the order in which the application was received in order to ensure that people who are waiting also have their application confirmed.
The introduction of this new system could explain why there have been some cases since January that have not yet been resolved.
“Remember that there are many cases that need to be processed. To date, 95,000 people have been approved and hard work is being done to move each case forward. Please continue to use legal avenues to immigrate to the United States,” the letter reads. Message.
“I’m safe in the group of lottery formats because I’ve been since January 31 and I’ve been waiting for it for more than 100 days. In any case, we have to thank the best country in the world for this opportunity,” said one tweeter.
However, others believe that processing by date is the fairest. “Ideally everything would be in chronological order. I pray mine will be approved. February is my month. If it’s not a coincidence and I’m almost 90 days, in chronological order I’m still stuck in this country,” they commented.