Cuban-Americans support Trump, but want to maintain humanitarian parole

Cuban-Americans — who mostly live in South Florida — are poised to support candidate Donald Trump like never before in the upcoming elections. However, they are opposed to the Republican’s plan to eliminate the humanitarian parole program, which has allowed the legal entry of over 111,000 Cuban citizens into the United States. This situation is contradictory, as the data suggests that while enthusiasm for Trump is growing in the Sunshine State, a majority of Cuban-Americans do not want the Biden administration’s program to end. Since the beginning of 2023, this initiative — first offered to Venezuelans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans — has been expanded to Cubans, who are now also granted a two-year legal stay in the country.

Trump has said that if he becomes the 47th president of the United States, he will confront the migration crisis head-on, specifically targeting two programs that have facilitated the legal entry of thousands of migrants: the CBP One cell phone application, used for submitting asylum requests from Mexico, and the humanitarian parole program, which, as of September 2024, has helped 531,000 individuals from the four aforementioned nationalities.

“I would revoke it and they get out,” the former president said during a phone interview with FOX News. “Get ready to leave, especially quickly if they’re criminals. Get ready to leave because you’re going to be going out real fast.”

Cubans, however, appear unfazed by the Republican’s constant threats to implement a massive, multimillion-dollar deportation of immigrants or to cleanse the country of “criminals” crossing the border. A poll conducted by Florida International University (FIU), which has surveyed the Cuban-American community for over 30 years, reveals that 55% of Cuban-American voters identify as Republicans, and 68% plan to vote for Trump. Analysts indicate that Trump enjoys significantly stronger support among Cuban-Americans now compared to the 2016 elections, boasting the highest approval rating for a Republican candidate — double the 35% he received in 2016.

One survey question specifically addressed whether respondents supported Biden’s humanitarian parole program. The results showed a striking 72% in favor, with 62% of Cuban-American Republicans opposed to it being dismantled.

Cubans do not feel personally targeted by Trump

According to Jorge Duany, director of the FIU Cuban Research Institute and a professor of anthropology in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies, most Cuban-Americans do not take offense when Trump makes anti-immigrant statements or threatens to eliminate programs that benefit them and their relatives on the island. “Most Cubans, particularly those from the first generation, view themselves more as exiles than as immigrants, which makes Trump’s rhetoric seem less relevant to them, even though it is,” says Duany.

Thanks to the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) of 1966, Cubans are less worried than other immigrant groups about Trump’s anti-immigrant statements or the Biden administration’s decision not to extend the parole program for more than two years. Recently, as uncertainty loomed over the fate of the first Venezuelans who arrived in the U.S. under the parole program, authorities confirmed that there would be no extension, although new applications would still be accepted. The CAA, however, provides Cubans a pathway to legal residency if they remain in the U.S. legally for a minimum of one year.

So far, the situation remains confusing, and it is unclear what will happen to migrants benefiting from parole who, after two years, cannot regularize their status —especially since many of their home governments do not allow deportation flights. For migrants from Haiti or Venezuela, there may be an opportunity to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). However, Nicaraguans will only be able to pursue asylum applications. To date, nearly 214,000 Haitians, over 96,000 Nicaraguans, and almost 121,000 Venezuelans have benefited from the parole program.

Since the Biden administration launched this program in October 2022 as part of its strategy to address the border crisis — a key issue in the current presidential campaign — the number of illegal crossings has fallen sharply. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office reported that encounters at the border have decreased by 99% since these legal entry processes were implemented.

Humanitarian parole has faced various criticisms, and there have been many efforts to eliminate it altogether. Approximately 21 Republican-led states have filed lawsuits against the federal government, arguing that the program compels them to invest millions of dollars in medical care, education, and public safety for immigrants. The program has also come under scrutiny and was even being temporarily suspended when authorities identified instances of fraud committed by sponsors during the application process.

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