The title is a play on the fact that while people angrily protest migrant amnesty, Cubans have been the beneficiaries of an amnesty for decades.  I don't mean to diminish the hardship of the Cuban experience.  I'm only trying to add complexity to a debate that has been reduced to toxic and hateful soundbites. 

If a Cuban touches U.S. soil they are immediately accepted as a political refugee and put on a path towards citizenship.  Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Cubans have ripped their homes apart to build makeshift rafts and risk their lives at sea to build a life in the U.S.  The Cuban experience is a horrible one. 

Yet, for that matter, so is the experience of Haitians.  They suffer the same, if not worse hardship, than Cubans do. Except when they touch U.S. soil, they are returned to their homes or forced live in the shadows as "illegal aliens" in the U.S.  So is the experience of indigenous Guatemalans, heavily discriminated against and living in absolute penury in their own countries.

If anti-migrant advocates are going to be so hateful in their denial of mercy, then let them deny mercy to everyone, including Cubans. 

When did "amnesty" become a bad word?  When did compassion and tolerance lose out to toughness and nativism, in the beacon of hope that the United States of America is supposed to be? 

My favorite defense of "misericordia" comes from an article published in Time Magazine by Nathan Thornburgh, "The Case For Amnesty".  In it Thornburgh makes the case for legalization.  He says it can work politically, it can work economically, that it won't be a burden on society, and that it won't send more people streaming across the border. 

I don't mean to say that migrants are in need of charity, I just think the U.S. has take the boots off their necks.  They struggle so much to get to the U.S.  When they arrive they live in constant fear, and are regularly exploited.  If all this effort wasn't expended working in the shadows in the U.S. and keeping them out, think of how much the U.S. and the societies that migrants came from would flourish.

"But, Kyle, they take our jobs, make our health care more expensive, bankrupt the State, bring in disease and crime, you name it."

If you look at each and every one of the reasons that people believe migrants are hurting the U.S. you'll find that there is are much more effective ways to make a difference than kicking out migrants.  It just so happens that it's easy to blame migrants.  A migrant is a voiceless other.  It's easy to take out your frustration on an enemy because it stops you from taking a long hard look at yourself. 

Of course, amnesty is not the solution.  My next and last essay will focus on how the only real solution is to give migrants the ability to stay in their home countries.  That being said, the U.S. does have to figure out what to do with the millions of migrants living inside of the U.S. illegally.  I don't believe that there is any other solution except for amnesty.  If the U.S. has lost it's humanity, than deny mercy to everyone, including Cubans, because not to do so is unjust.