Dispatch from tropical S. Florida: Where’s the warm welcome?

Two years ago Vice President Joe Biden likened LaGuardia Airport’s decaying terminals to those of a “third-world country.” Some people at the time dismissed his comment as hyperbole. To me, however, it was an accurate observation of the indignities we suffer while traveling through what should be paragons of welcoming infrastructure, but are actually decrepit depots for arriving visitors and U.S. citizens alike.

I was reminded of Biden’s comment recently in Miami, having made the journey back and forth to Havana a number of times now, mainly for business, but also because I have grown to love the country and its people. Next time I head to Cuba, I am determined to fly out of Fort Lauderdale, which in my experience offers tranquility compared to Miami International Airport.

As jarring as it was to arrive in Cuba my first time in 1987 during an emergency landing, it was more jarring to arrive at MIA last month, after a perfectly safe flight and five days in Havana. In figurative terms, it was time travel: I returned from 1960, around the time Cuba started its deep freeze under the Revolution and the U.S. economic embargo, to the flaming hell of an Orwellian 1984. What do I mean? A week in Cuba forces you to deal with humans. Friendly humans. Weary humans. Joyous humans. Tired humans. Perhaps the best time to reflect on this simple fact is at the international departure gate of Jose Marti Airport, where going home to the United States is imminent yet spiritually so far. The flight is less than an hour. The delay this time was five hours, because of a mechanical or air traffic control problem. Nobody was exactly sure.

But there was no shortage of people to ask: The people at the ticket desks, the people at Havanatur (the government’s travel agency), the customs officials, even the people at the currency exchange — officials of all stripes at every turn. It was oddly reassuring to get updates from them, even though my departure time extended into the night, and I would miss my connection in Miami.

After spending time in Cuba, however, arrival in Miami is a lesson in America’s experiment in depersonalization. First you arrive at what was once an abandoned wing of the airport, and then make your way through a labyrinth of patched-up hallways. Browning ceiling tiles are bowed by the weight of tropical condensation. At the end is a bank of robots — the new “automated passport control machines” that seem to be taking root at every major airport.

The airport has rid itself of agents who used to say “welcome back to the United States” after delivering that loud, authoritative stamp into your passport. Instead you are forced to peer into a camera that adjusts to your height and scans your face. A card resembling a boarding pass with your picture is ejected from the bowels of this machine. It’s the card you will finally hand to someone at the front of a long line. No words are exchanged.

This last time, I looked around at Cubans entering the fray, many of them shocked and incredulous; not just amid the confusion of it all, but also by the coldness of a culture that is less-andless lubricated by people.

Anyone who hasn’t been to Cuba yet should immediately go. The entire plane claps when you land in Havana, for the safe passage, sure. But also for pure joy. The few claps eeked out on your arrival in Miami are crushed by a long, soul-killing walk to faceless robots that only care about data harvested from your eyes.

And whether you agree with him or not, Biden’s observation raises an important question: What do our ports of entry, specifically the terminal at MIA for charter flights arriving from Cuba, or the tattered border crossings at El Paso and Tijuana, for instance, say about us, and our view of humanity?

After spending time in Cuba ... arrival in Miami is a lesson in America’s experiment in depersonalization.