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Podcasts Take Two
Cuba and the end of the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy
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Jan 13, 2017
Listen • 9:01
Cuba and the end of the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy
The Obama administration has announced an end to a two-decade old policy, granting Cubans residency, if they make it to U.S. soil.
Tourists walk next to a poster of Cuban President Raul Castro and US president Barack Obama in Havana, on March 18, 2016. US president Barack Obama touches down in Havana on Sunday to cap a long-unimaginable rapprochement with Cuba and burnish a presidential legacy dulled by Middle East quagmires and partisan sniping. As Air Force One rolls to a stop, Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge arrived on a battleship in 1928, before the discovery of penicillin or invention of the ballpoint pen. AFP PHOTO/YAMIL LAGE / AFP / YAMIL LAGE (Photo credit should read YAMIL LAGE/AFP/Getty Images)
Tourists walk next to a poster of Cuban President Raul Castro and US president Barack Obama in Havana. The Obama Administration announced an end to the policy known as "wet foot, dry foot."
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YAMIL LAGE/AFP/Getty Images
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The Obama administration has announced an end to a two-decade old policy, granting Cubans residency, if they make it to U.S. soil. 

The Obama administration has announced an end to a two-decade old policy, granting Cubans residency, if they make it to U.S. soil. 

Effective immediately Cuban nationals attempting to enter the US illegally would be subject to removal, putting an end to the policy known as "wet foot, dry foot." 

For more on what this shift means we spoke to Pilar Marrero, a senior writer with La Opinion... and Jose Marquez is a Cuban American artist.