Pitiful lack of leadership on Cuban crisis

With the exodus of Cuban refugees having reached a crisis stage, South Florida’s congressional delegation — including our two U.S. senators — continues to turn a blind eye.

Since the first of October, the Coast Guard has caught and returned 1,334 Cuban rafters illegally trying to migrate across the Florida Straits.

At the same time, a good number of Cuban exiles are getting through. On Christmas Day, for example, 28 migrants on two rafts reached the Florida Keys. And because of our nation’s unique immigration law for Cubans, they and others who reach dry land will likely be allowed to stay.

Meanwhile, a wave of Cuban immigrants is headed this way by land. Since mid-November, an estimated 8,000 Cubans have been stuck at the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, caught in changing rules for passage and Cuba’s relaxed rules for exit visas. On Tuesday, a deal was reached that will let the mass migration continue to the U.S. A good number of these immigrants are expected to come to South Florida.

In the year that just ended, approximately 45,000 Cubans are believed to have illegally entered the United States, a 78 percent increase over the previous year.

The exodus is largely driven by a fear that renewed diplomacy between our nations will bring about an end to the Cold War-era law that gives Cubans special immigration status because of the Castro dictatorship.

Yet as Sun Sentinel reporter Mike Clary found in talking to recent arrivals, today’s Cuban immigrants do not consider themselves political refugees. Rather, like so many people from poor nations, they are seeking a chance at a better life, a better job and the American Dream.

Nevertheless, the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 continues to welcome all Cubans as though they were fleeing political persecution. And as the Sun Sentinel recently revealed, they almost immediately get welfare benefits, too.

As it turns out, because they can secure residency status after 366 days — and Cuba’s new visa law lets them freely return for two years — some start coming and going between our two nations, undermining any suggestion that they are politically persecuted there.

At the same time, the Sun Sentinel has found that a good number are engaging in welfare fraud, Medicare fraud and auto insurance fraud — and creating a criminal pipeline back to the island.

Given what we know about our flawed immigration policy for Cubans, you’d think someone in leadership would be addressing the abuses, right? Wrong. South Florida’s congressional delegation has shown a pitiful lack of leadership.

The two people best poised to create change are U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, both Cuban-Americans, both Republicans from Miami.

Ros-Lehtinen is the dean of our region’s delegation. Other representatives tell us they defer to her on Cuba issues.

While Ros-Lehtinen has stood strong against President Obama’s effort to normalize relations with Cuba, rightly concerned about human rights violations, she refuses to address the immigration system’s waste, fraud and abuse.

Ros-Lehtinen has said she was waiting for Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Miami, to file a bill. But when the freshman lawmaker recently filed legislation to address the welfare fraud committed by some exiles, Ros-Lehtinen’s name was noticeably missing as a co-sponsor. Indeed, not a single member of South Florida’s delegation signed on — a red flag for the bill’s chances of passage.

Meanwhile, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan says immigration is off the table this election year, which means our do-nothing Congress will continue to fiddle in the face of a crisis.

We tried to find Florida Sen. Bill Nelson’s position on what’s happening along the borders of Costa Rica and Florida. We found nothing.

We tried to find what Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has said, too. We found nothing.

We also tried to find what Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has had to say. Nothing.

At least former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has shown the courage to address the exodus headed this way from Central America.

“The rule of law must be respected,” Bush said at a campaign rally in Hialeah this week, according to the Miami Herald. “I don’t know their exact condition there, but they don’t have — they shouldn’t have, and I don’t think they do have — free entry into this country. We have to have an immigration system based on the law, and if those laws don’t work, to change the law.”

In a holiday visit with the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, spoke frankly about the challenge, for which we give her credit.

“We all think the law should be changed,” she said. “Most of us in the delegation would like to see the Miami delegates take the lead.”

But out of respect, she said the delegation defers to the Cuban-American representatives.

No bigger immigration challenge faces South Florida than the growing exodus from Cuba.

Because of paralyzing politics, look for the crisis to get worse.