This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, January 18th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown. On his way out of office, President Obama shocked Cubans by ending the so-called wet foot dry foot

policy which had allowed refugees escaping Cuba to receive green cards.

Cato Institute immigration policy analyst Alex Narasta comments.

Cuba's had a special place in U.S. immigration policy since the Communist Revolution there.

In the 1966, there was a Cuban Adjustment Act passed that said any Cuban who came to the United

States, they are here for two years and they didn't violate other serious American laws.

They were guaranteed a green card, which

is unique amongst people from all countries.

Later, that two-year time period was shortened to one year.

In the mid-1990s, due to surges of an escalating surge of Cubans coming to the United States,

the government Institute of Policy called Wetford Dryfoot, which meant that if you made

it to America's shores, you could stay and then be paroled into the United States and enter that

process whereby you would get a green card. However if you were intercepted on the

high seas by the Coast Guard then they would turn you back to either Cuba or another third country where you

could therefore seek asylum in that other country. So what if

Hartford-Reffer was never the best policy of dealing with humans, but it was by far a better policy

than not allowing them to stay if they made it to the United States, which is what the policy is for every other group.

How many people took advantage of that policy?

We hear these stories of rickety rafts traveling the 90 miles or so to Florida, but how many people took advantage?

Quite a large number.

The most recent way, in 2016, about 60,000 Cubans took advantage of the Wetford Dryfoot.

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