Cuba’s Fidel Castro once described immigrants as ‘modern slaves’
All throughout his authoritarian rule, Fidel Castro enjoyed delivering speeches that lasted four hours and more. In June 2006, the Cuban leader was quoted by a Dominican newspaper as saying that immigrants are the equivalent of “modern slaves,” without whom industrialized nations could not keep going. He expressed sorrow for Mexico that after being “ransacked” by the United States, now is forced to sustain itself with the remittances.
“Every minute it becomes more difficult for them (the United States) to control the slaves (the immigrants),” Castro said.
There’s a politically powerful community of Cuban immigrants in Miami. Castro himself has derided them, calling the immigrants gusanos (worms), escoria (trash) and more recently “the Miami Mafia.” There’s reason for Castro to get annoyed because under his rule, more than a million Cubans fled to the United States, settling mostly in Miami.
But now that Castro has stepped aside as Cuba’s president, should the United States ease restrictions on Cuban-Americans who seek to visit or send money to relatives on the island? Would this signal a better future for Cuban immigrants?
