The American Border Crisis and the Law of Unintended Consequences, By Osmund Agbo

The United States faces a crisis of gargantuan proportions on its southern border. The lack of economic opportunities at home to support a teeming young population and widespread political instability caused by unbridled corruption is fueling a mass exodus of foreign nationals, mainly from Cuba, Mexico as well as Central American countries from Guatemala. , from El Salvador and Honduras to the United States. States. The Biden White House is struggling to contain what right-wing commentators have often described as an invasion.

"It was mid-afternoon, and we could clearly see smugglers across the river on the Mexican side, loading women and children onto a yellow raft. The coyotes, like the smugglers are called, forded it, and with a final push, the migrants drifted to the American shore and rushed down a dirt road until they spotted the border patrol . They walked to the officers."

Watching from a helicopter during routine aerial surveillance is how a US Customs and Border Protection officer described the crisis many years ago. Since then, things have gotten worse, but the United States elicits little sympathy, as many attribute much of the crisis to the messy geopolitics it has played out for too long; a nice case of chicken coming home to roost. Cuba, for example, is a special case.

Between 1492 and 1898, Cuba was a Spanish colony and many Cubans today have Spanish ancestry. Even during the period of Spanish rule, the United States always showed a keen interest in this Caribbean nation. As early as 1820, President Thomas Jefferson described Cuba as "the most interesting addition that could ever be made to our system of states". The desire to procure Cuba intensified in the 1840s with more than one unsuccessful attempt to buy it from Spain, offering $100 million and $300 million at different times without success.

During the struggle for independence, America provided all kinds of support to Cuba against the Spanish colonialist. But it was the latter's rejection of Cuba's purchase offer and an explosion that sank the American naval battleship, USS Maine in the port of Havana, that ultimately led to the Spanish American War. known as the American intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. On December 10, 1898, the United States and Spain reached an agreement and signed the Treaty of Paris. In accordance with the treaty, Spain renounced all rights to Cuba, ending the Spanish Empire in the Americas. It also marked the beginning of the political domination of the region by the United States which lasted until 1902, when Cuba finally gained formal independence.

When the United States declared war on Spain in 1898, it disavowed any intention to exercise "sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control" over Cuba. Cuba in turn agreed, under what was called the Platt Amendment, to allow the United States to intervene in Cuban affairs if necessary for the maintenance of good government. Cuba also pledged to lease land from the US government for naval bases in the southern part of Guantánamo Bay, and the US naval station had been established there since 1898. The amendments clearly defined the terms of US relations. -Cubans for the next 33 years and provided the legal basis for US military interventions to varying degrees in Cuba.

The Platt Amendment remained in place until Ramon Grau, a Cuban doctor who became president in 1933, overturned it. In protest, the United States refused to recognize his government and called it "communist" and "irresponsible". The rise of General Fulgecio Batista as de facto leader and president of Cuba for two terms (1940–44 and 1952–59) led to an era of close and increased cooperation between the governments of Cuba and the United States . The Batista era was notable for the almost complete domination of the Cuban economy by the United States. In July 1953, however, an armed conflict was started by Fidel Castro against the Batista regime and American weapons worth millions of dollars were sent to the Cuban government to help put down the rebellion without success.

After the success of the revolution led by Castro in 1959, bilateral relations between the two nations deteriorated considerably. On August 6, 1960, the Cuban government, led by Prime Minister Fidel Castro, nationalized all US oil refineries within Cuba's national borders, as well as sugar mills and mines. Castro also seized approximately $1.7 billion in US oil assets. In October 1960, the United States imposed an extensive set of sanctions and restrictions against the government in retaliation. These sanctions are in place to this day.