About this site

This site brings together two stories that are usually told separately: the story of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 and the story of the people who left Cuba for the United States from January 1, 1959 to the present. The law cannot be understood without the waves of migration that prompted and reshaped it, and those waves cannot be understood without the law that received them.

It is an independent educational project, with no advertising and no affiliation with any government, party or organization. It is published in English at cubanadjustmentact.org and in Spanish at leydeajustecubano.org, with the same content in both languages.

What you will find

• History: fourteen chapters in chronological order, from the first exiles of 1959 to the situation in 2025 and 2026.
• The law: what it is, its original and current text, how it works, its amendments, the policies around it (parole, Form I-220A, "wet foot, dry foot"), the case law and the debate about its future.
• Timeline: every dated event from the chapters on a single timeline.
• Data: official statistical series in charts, with the data table and the source of every number.
• Glossary and FAQ: the most common terms and questions, explained in plain language.
• Sources: the complete list of documents cited, chapter by chapter.

How it was made

Every verifiable statement carries a footnote with its source and a link to the document. The order of preference is always the same:

1. Primary sources: the text of statutes (Statutes at Large, U.S. Code), the Federal Register, decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals and the federal courts, the USCIS Policy Manual, statistics from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard, the Census, presidential libraries and the State Department's diplomatic records.
2. Academic and reference work: books and articles by historians and demographers of Cuban migration, the Congressional Research Service, the Pew Research Center and the Migration Policy Institute, among others.
3. Reputable press, above all for the most recent events.

Legal citations were checked against the original text of each statute or decision, not against summaries. When two sources give different figures for the same event, the text says so and cites both. Events after 2024 were checked against at least one primary source or two independent sources.

What this site is not

This site does not provide legal advice. It explains a law and its history in general terms; it does not tell anyone what to do in their own case. Immigration law changes often, and it changed a great deal in 2025 and 2026. Every case depends on its facts: decisions should be made with an immigration attorney or a representative accredited by the Department of Justice.

Images

The historical photographs are in the public domain (most are works of the U.S. federal government) or are openly licensed. Each image credits its author and license and links to its source. The gallery brings them all together, arranged by period.

Updates

The content reflects information available as of November 11, 2026. Each page shows its update date. The chapters on recent events and the pages on the law will be revised when there are relevant changes in legislation, agency policy or the courts.

Contact

If you find an error, a broken source or a fact that has changed, write to contact@cubanadjustmentact.org with the link to the page and, if you can, the source that corrects it. We do not answer questions about individual cases: those need an immigration attorney or an accredited representative.