Alan Simpson: “Mr. President I thank the Senator from Florida. This is an issue that continues, and I hope my colleagues can hear it…”

“Mr. President I thank the Senator from Florida. This is an issue that continues, and I hope my colleagues can hear it and understand what it is that we have done here over the years. This is the Cuban Adjustment Act. It has not anything to do with the Cuban-Haitian Adjustment Act. This is a measure that went on the books in the early 1960's when the freedom flotillas were bringing in hundreds of thousands of Cubans who were being given parole. People say, ``What is parole?'' It is a very distinctive remedy. It is just bringing them here, really outside the scope of immigration laws, in a sense. It is a temporary status, and the only way to change to permanent status is through adjustment. Hence, the Cuban Adjustment Act. The Cuban Adjustment Act is a relic of the freedom flights of the 1960's and freedom flotillas in the late 1970's. The Senate repealed it first in 1982, if I recall, and then it went to the House, and it was left out of conference. The Senate has repealed it again--I do not recall that date--and it was replaced in conference. At the time of the original Cuban Adjustment Act--it was a time of crisis, obviously a time of crisis has been continuing in that part of the world--Cubans were brought to the United States by the tens of thousands, even the hundreds of thousands.…”