Asylum case likely to set precedent for Cubans, following end to wet foot, dry foot policy

An elderly Cuban couple is expected to remain in detention while a judge who presided over their asylum hearing Friday makes a final determination on their fate. Aquilino Caraballo and Georgina HernA ndez, 67 and 64, have been held in separate facilities since they were taken into custody on Jan. 13 at Miami International Airport, a day after the former Obama administration announced an end to the immigration policy known as “wet foot, dry foot.”

680 Cubans returned home since end of ‘wet foot, dry foot’

” About 680 Cubans have been returned to the island from various countries since then-President Barack Obama ended a longstanding immigration policy that allowed any Cuban who made it to U.S. soil to stay and become a legal resident, state television reported Friday. Cuba’s government had long sought the repeal of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which it said encouraged Cubans to risk dangerous voyages and drained the country of professionals.

Cuba sees explosion in internet access as ties with US grow

The 55-year-old theater producer connected the device to his phone and his laptop computer, which instantly lit up with a service unimaginable in the Cuba of just a few years ago – relatively fast home internet. “It’s really easy to sit and find whatever you need,” Gonzalez said as he sat in his living room updating his Facebook account, listening to Uruguayan radio online and checking an arriving tourist’s landing time for a neighbor who rents rooms in their building in historic Old Havana.

Cubans sold everything to reach U.S., now hundreds stranded

A group of Cuban migrants share travel stories outside the Caritas shelter for migrants in Panama City, Panama, January 13, 2017. Lilia Gonzales , a staff member of the Caritas shelter for migrants, explains the center policy and options to new Cuban migrants that arrived the previous night to the center in Panama City, Panama, January 13, 2017.

Obama administration ends special immigration policy for Cubans | Reuters

The Obama administration on Thursday repealed a measure granting automatic residency to virtually every Cuban who arrived in the United States, whether or not they had visas, ending a longstanding exception to U.S. immigration policy. The end of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed any Cuban who reached U.S. soil to stay but returned any picked up at sea, is effective immediately.

Photo Flash: Cultural Council of Palm Beach County Welcomes 140 Fans…

Rena Blades , President & Chief Executive Officer of the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County, today announced that the second Conversation of this season’s CULTURE & COCKTAILS series attracted more than 140 people last Monday to The Colony Hotel Pavilion, located at 155 Hammon Avenue in Palm Beach . , a conversation with two star appraisers from Antiques Roadshow on PBS: Kathleen Guzman , Managing Director/New York from Heritage Auctions, andNicholas Dawes, Heritage’s Vice President of Special Collections.

Whether Cuba or Key West, it’s all about having fun

After a recent, somewhat hysterical spate of Citizen’s Voice comments about the supposed misuse of the terms “drag queen” and “female impersonator” around here – which, by many, many accounts are interchangeable – I decided to excavate an old image from an interesting evening in Havana in 2008 that featured just that. An elderly writer from New York City and I became acquainted during a trip to see Raul Castro speak on the 55th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution in Santiago de Cuba, and once back in the capital, she invited me out to “dinner and a show.”