These are probably the same "Cuban exiles" that enjoyed special treatment for years by the US government, via an agreement that allowed many Cubans to enter the USA illegally and be processed and remain here, under conditions that would have caused people from Mexico and other countries entering the USA under the exact same circumstances to be refused entry and sent back.
Special treatment was given Cubans due to the pseudo-socialist authoritarian government of Cuba. There are not and never have been political imprisonment, deprivation of food rations, loss of employment, torture and assasination of dissidents in Mexico. For a period during the first Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, the same entry permits were given to people from that country and the criteria is been applied with modification for Venezuelans.
When I was managing a station in Miami, we did stories about individuals who had arrived in the Mariel boat lift and it was horrifying to hear what some of them had endured in Cuba. And that is without going into the stories of the earliest escapees from Castro who had seen family members killed because they were "traditional oligarchs" and needed to be erradicated.
Many Cubans who took full advantage of those special circumstances for people from their country specifically, and came here and later brought scads of family with them, are voting for Trump and screaming the loudest for him to build the wall and seal the borders. Why? Because these folks from Cuba have made it here, they've established themselves, and yes, many are guilty of doing the same things and living the same lifestyles that Trump has warned us Mexicans would do if permitted here (not learning English, living off the government and allowing taxpayers to support them financially, taking jobs that should have gone to "real" Americans, etc.).
Not true at all. Over 2/3 of the banks in Miami are Cuban-American or Hispanic owned, the Cuban-American community has higher income than non-Hispanic whites, and in general the community is entrepreneurial and prosperous and has a low usage of social welfare and assistance programs.
The second generation, just like that of Polish or German or Italian or any other immigrant group, speaks English and are quite "assimilated" while maintaining the strong values of family and community that have been lost among many non-Hispanic whites.
And the earlier Cuban immigrants were the whole professional class from Cuba... doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, agronomists, even the scientists that ran rum distilleries! They saved Miami, which in the late 50's was dying as jet aircraft made the whole Caribbean the new vacation choice.
Just a note: first generation working class non-English speaking immigrants generally only learn minimal "functional" English if they learn at all. They are too busy working long hours and building a family unit and a future for that family. This is not something new... it goes back to the non-English speaking Irish over 200 years ago, then the Germans after the Civil War, the Asians who came to the West, the Italians from the late 1800's and every other group since then.
However, these Cuban folks don't want others coming behind them from Mexico and other countries as they see it as competition that they simply don't want.
Absolutely untrue. Their "cause" is not letting up the pressure on the Cuban regime... and now they are joined by Venezuelans doing the same thing. We are starting to see this with educated and prosperous Peruvians moving in large numbers to the US due to the proclaimed socialist government and the total loss of rule of law there.
They're here, they've made it, and they don't want that same opportunity to be offered to anyone else.
No, they want the government to continue to pressure Cuba for more freedom and rights. Your assumption is totally inaccurate.
How incredibly selfish these people must be! They cannot have simple and basic empathy for immigrants from Mexico and other countries who currently want to come to the USA for a better life and for many of the same reasons they themselves came here from Cuba.
The motivation is different: it is political and social for Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and (for a while) Colombians and now Peruvians. With Mexicans and Central Americans, it is economic.
The average Mexican immigrant male has a 6th grade education, and women are about two years less (Source: Mexican Consulate, Los Angeles). They have limited if any skills other than basic family farming or subsistence level urban jobs. The earlier waves of Cuban migrants... and nearly all those from the countries I mentioned, are university or technical school graduates and many bring amazing skills with them.
