Emigration, laws and justice.

By: Pedro Corzo - 01/12/2025

Guest columnist.
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Leaving the country where one was born implies a radical life change that practically demands a reinvention of the person who does it.

Carrying it out under appropriate conditions, with the necessary resources and within the legal framework demanded by the receiving country is traumatic, so it is difficult to qualify it when the decision is made by others, exile, or simply when the individual is forced to flee in search of refuge or a better life without having the necessary documents or resources to pay for a good law firm.

In short, the future of those who flee, beyond the label of flight, depends on the laws of the country that receives them and the character and sensitivity of the official who processes them, who within the framework of a humanistic justice should value the tragedy that the person who abandons families and possessions in search of security or a better life is suffering, aspects that, in my humble opinion, should be taken into account by those who apply immigration laws.

However, there are other immigration cases that should be dealt with severely in pursuit of greater justice; I am referring to those who, after serving a tyranny, decide to abandon it in search of protection or, even worse, to enjoy ill-gotten gains.

I am referring to the officials of Castroism and any other dictatorship, Nicaragua and Venezuela, who, like Cuban totalitarianism, have been adept at hiring mercenaries who, after being direct or indirect accomplices in all the atrocities of those regimes, abandon them when the situation deteriorates or simply when a higher-ranking official looks at them askance.

This reflection is the product of a conversation with the writer Jose Antonio Albertini in reference to the case of a subject named Jorge Javier Rodríguez Cabrera, who was a courier for the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was part of the aristocracy of Castro's totalitarianism by having the friendship of the main henchman known as "The Crab", grandson and bodyguard of Raúl Castro, which facilitated, according to the local newspaper, "links with the Cuban military elite".

It must be taken into account that providing diplomatic courier services in any country demands a great deal of trust, and in Cuba, the requirements for that position demand significant political loyalty. Furthermore, being an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requires a "revolutionary" attitude, which implies passivity in the face of abuses committed by the authorities. This is one of the aspects that José Martí addressed in his writings when he expressed, "To calmly witness a crime is to commit it," and anything more criminal than the Cuban totalitarian system must be examined with an electron microscope.

I conclude by noting that I start from the premise that every state has the supreme right to protect its borders and determine who may or may not enter its territory. A shameful example of this right was the refusal of the governments of Cuba, the United States, and Canada to allow the ship San Luis, carrying nearly a thousand Jews fleeing Nazism, to enter their ports in 1939. These people were forced to disembark in European ports, many of them meeting tragic ends.

I am a fervent believer in justice and the law, in the right to an adequate defense to which Cuban citizens do not have access; however, I cannot help but feel apprehension at the release of a person with the aforementioned background, who worked for a period of time in a government agency that demands loyalty and who has practiced espionage against this country for decades.

It is not fair, I repeat, that those who have served a tyranny, whether in Cuba or anywhere else, should enjoy the blind justice of a democratic society simply because it has the resources to mount a skillful defense, to the detriment of those who have nothing for having fought against the regime that oppressed their country, as is the case with human rights activists, independent journalists, and anyone who loves freedom and defends their rights under the Castro-Chavista regimes.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».