The rest of the story

Welcome Michelle Malkin readers. As Michelle rightly points out, the Cuban government has a set of gonads on it to complain about the number of visas the US is issuing to Cubans that are trying to escape the island (and it’s universal healthcare and education ahem, ahem Michael Moore).
But the truth is that getting out of Cuba involves more than a visa to get into the US (or any other country) it also involves getting an “exit visa” known as a “tarjeta blanca” (white card). You see, Cuba is the only the country I can think of that requires you to obtain permission to abandon it. If there are any others out there, I suspect that they are North Korea or similar countries led by despotic dictators.
When a Cuban wins the “bombo” as the visa lottery is called, the fun has just begun. That Cuban then needs to get all the proper paperwork to get their tarjeta blanca. That usually involves bribing more than one official and getting physical exams that are NOT FREE (ahem, ahem Michael Moore). Think about that, a physical exam for somebody that wants to put their country in the rear view mirror. If you are a high profile person (like the wife of a Cuban baseball player who defected or a neurosurgeon that disagrees with the regime) you can forget about it.
The quest for an exit visa is something reminiscent of the movie Casablanca, where the most valuable commodity is a letter of transit that gives the bearer permission to get the hell out. Of course it’s all just a scam to get the Cuban’s stateside relatives to send even more cash to the hopeful immigrant. Cash the regime uses to continue to fuel its repressive machinery. It’s a shakedown plain and simple.
A slowdown in the number of visas greatly reduces the cash flow to the regime. 20,000 exit visas at an average cost $5,000 per visa yields the regime $100,000,000 in revenue. So if the US reduces the number of visas it issues, to say 10,000 or slows down the process of issuing visas so that the net result is that only 10,000 tarjetas blancas are issued, the result is net revenue loss of $50,000,000. No small potatoes.
No wonder they are angry, what with the declining tourism revenues, and the ever-maligned US restrictions on travel to Cuba, it’s got to be quite upsetting to the executives of castro, inc.
And now, as Paul Harvey might say, you know the rest of the story.