Frequently asked questions
Short, sourced answers about the Cuban Adjustment Act, parole, the I-220A and migration history. General information, not legal advice.
Is the Cuban Adjustment Act still in force?
Yes. As of November 11, 2026, the Cuban Adjustment Act (Public Law 89-732, 1966) remains in force, with the amendments of 1976, 1980, 2000 and 2006, and appears as a note to section 1255 of title 8 of the U.S. Code.
What ended on January 12, 2017 was the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, not the law. Since then, how the law applies depends mostly on how each person entered: with an admission, with parole or with another document, such as the I-220A.
The law also has a repeal clause provided for in another 1996 law: it would be repealed only if the president determines that a democratically elected government is in power in Cuba. More in What Is the Cuban Adjustment Act and Debate and Future.
What is the Cuban Adjustment Act, in brief?
It is a federal law signed on November 2, 1966 that allows a Cuban who is in the United States to apply for permanent residence (the green card) without needing a relative or an employer to sponsor them.
Its basic requirements are in the first section: being a native or citizen of Cuba; having been inspected and admitted or paroled after January 1, 1959; having been in the country for at least one year (two in the original text); and being admissible for permanent residence. The decision is discretionary: the law says the government "may" grant the adjustment. The spouse and children who live with the Cuban may also benefit even if they are not Cuban.
When it was passed, President Lyndon B. Johnson estimated that about 123,000 Cuban refugees could apply right away and that about 4,000 more would be added each month. See the text of the law and how it works.
How long do you have to be in the U.S. to qualify under the law?
The law requires physical presence in the United States for at least one year. The 1966 text asked for two years; the Refugee Act of 1980 reduced it to one.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), that year must be completed on the day the application (Form I-485) is filed, and it does not need to be counted from the parole. The USCIS Policy Manual adds that a person who obtained permanent residence under this law after November 18, 2020 without having completed the year before filing the I-485 is later denied naturalization.
Residence and citizenship are separate processes. To naturalize, the law generally requires five years as a permanent resident, and under the Adjustment Act those years are counted from the rollback date set by the law itself. See How It Works.
What is the rollback date?
It is a rule the law has had since 1966. When the government approves permanent residence under the Adjustment Act, it does not record it with the date of approval but with an earlier one: the date of last arrival in the United States or the date 30 months before the application was filed, whichever is later.
A hypothetical example: a person who arrived in March 2022 and filed the application in April 2023 would be recorded as a resident since March 2022, because 30 months before April 2023 (October 2020) is a date earlier than the arrival. A person who had already been in the country for five years when filing would be recorded as a resident from 30 months before the filing.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), that is the date from which the residence is counted when applying for citizenship. The regulation adds that a temporary departure, without intent to abandon residence and followed by a return with admission or parole, does not change the "last arrival" for purposes of this law.
What is the difference between the Adjustment Act and "wet foot, dry foot"?
They are two different things that worked together for more than two decades.
The Adjustment Act is a 1966 act of Congress that allows certain Cubans who are already in the United States to apply for residence.
"Wet foot, dry foot" was an executive branch practice derived from the 1994 and 1995 migration accords. Cubans interdicted at sea ("wet foot") were returned to Cuba unless they expressed a well-founded fear of persecution; those who reached land ("dry foot") were inspected, generally received parole and after one year could use the Adjustment Act.
On January 12, 2017, the administration of Barack Obama ended that practice: since then, Cubans who try to enter irregularly and do not qualify for humanitarian protection are subject to removal, like people from other countries. The law, however, remained in force. More in Wet Foot, Dry Foot and The End of Wet Foot.
What is parole and why does it matter so much for Cubans?
Parole is permission to enter or stay temporarily in the United States without having been admitted with a visa. It is granted by the Secretary of Homeland Security "only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit."
The law makes clear that parole is not an admission, but the Cuban Adjustment Act accepts a person who was "inspected and admitted or paroled." That is why, for decades, parole was the usual way in which Cubans who arrived without a visa met that requirement.
Since 2021 the distinction has become central. Cubans who arrived on parole under section 212(d)(5)(A), for example through the process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV), met the entry requirement; by contrast, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decided in 2023 that release on recognizance under section 236, documented on Form I-220A, is not that parole.
Parole ends automatically if the person leaves the United States. See Policies: Parole and I-220A.
Does the I-220A count for the Adjustment Act?
As of November 2026, no binding decision recognizes the I-220A as parole for the Adjustment Act, and the question remains in litigation. Verified milestones:
- September 11, 2023. In Matter of Cabrera-Fernandez, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decided that release on recognizance under section 236 is not the parole of section 212(d)(5)(A) and does not meet the requirement of the law.
- May 15, 2025. In Matter of Q. Li, the BIA held that a person detained upon arrival is under section 235(b). In the Cuban cases that reached the Eleventh Circuit, the petitioners argue that, if so, their release was a parole.
- July 2025. According to the Eleventh Circuit, in two cases of Cubans the government came to argue that they had been detained under section 235, while continuing to oppose adjustment.
- February 23, 2026. The Eleventh Circuit vacated those decisions and sent the cases back to the BIA, without declaring that the I-220A is parole (Labrada-Hechavarria, unpublished).
- October 1, 2026. The Supreme Court agreed to review Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, on the detention of people who entered without inspection, the underlying question in the debate.
Bill H.R. 4393 (2025) proposes to treat such releases through January 31, 2023 as parole; it is not law. See Case Law.
What happened to CHNV humanitarian parole?
The parole process for Cubans was announced on January 5, 2023, published in the Federal Register on January 9, and was part of the processes for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV). A supporter in the United States filed Form I-134A; if the beneficiary was approved, the beneficiary could travel by air and receive parole for up to two years.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), through the end of December 2024, 110,240 Cubans arrived by this route, out of about 531,690 people from the four countries.
On March 25, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published the termination of the programs and set April 24, 2025 as the end of unexpired paroles, absent an individual determination to the contrary. A federal judge in Massachusetts stayed that measure in April 2025, but the Supreme Court set that order aside on May 30, 2025.
Because a parole of this kind meets the entry requirement of the Adjustment Act, a person who arrived through CHNV could apply for residence after one year of presence, if they met the other requirements. See Humanitarian Parole.
Can a spouse who is not Cuban benefit?
Yes, under the text of the law. Its first section says its provisions apply to the spouse and children of the qualifying Cuban, "regardless of their citizenship and place of birth," as long as they reside with the Cuban in the United States.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) specifies that the child must be unmarried and under 21, and that the relative may file an application together with the Cuban's, while it is pending or after it is approved, if the Cuban is still a permanent resident. The non-Cuban relative must meet the other requirements on their own: having been inspected and admitted or paroled, having been in the country for one year when filing and being admissible.
Under the 2000 and 2006 amendments from the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a spouse or child who has been battered or subjected to extreme cruelty by the Cuban may adjust status without proving that they live with the Cuban. Every case depends on its facts. See How It Works.
What was the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program (CFRP) and is it still open?
The Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program (CFRP) was created by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on November 21, 2007. It allowed Cubans with an approved family petition to travel to the United States on parole instead of waiting on the island for a visa to become available. The notice that created it framed it within the commitment of the migration accords to provide a minimum of 20,000 travel documents a year to Cubans who wanted to emigrate.
In August 2023, new applications began to be initiated with the online Form I-134A.
It is no longer open. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published its termination on December 15, 2025, and unexpired paroles ended on January 14, 2026, with exceptions, such as for people who already had a residence application (I-485) pending under the conditions the notice set. See Present Day.
What is public charge and does it affect the Adjustment Act?
Public charge is a ground of inadmissibility: the law allows a visa or permanent residence to be denied to a person who, in the officer's judgment, is likely at some point to become dependent on the government.
On July 20, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a final rule, effective September 18, 2026, that repealed the 2022 rule and gave officers broad discretion again to weigh the use of public benefits. The same rule removed 8 C.F.R. § 212.23, which listed the exemptions, among them the one for people who apply for adjustment under the Cuban Adjustment Act.
DHS explained in that rule that it removed the list as redundant and that the exemption for Adjustment Act applicants still exists, because Congress created it. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) also lists public charge among the grounds of inadmissibility that do not apply to these applicants. The exemption refers to adjustment under this law; other routes, such as a family petition, have their own rules.
Does traveling to Cuba have an effect?
The Adjustment Act does not mention travel to Cuba. The effect of leaving the United States depends on each person's immigration situation, and the official rules say the following:
- With parole: under the regulation, parole ends automatically when the person leaves the United States.
- With a pending residence application: the regulation governs the effect of departures according to the adjustment route and provides for advance parole. For the Adjustment Act it establishes that a temporary absence, followed by a return with admission or parole, does not change the "last arrival" used to calculate the rollback date.
- Permanent residents: the green card is valid for returning after an absence of less than one year; for longer absences, the regulation provides other documents, such as a reentry permit. The June 2025 presidential proclamation restricting the entry of Cubans excludes permanent residents.
- Travel rules: travel to Cuba by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction is separately regulated by the Treasury Department.
This answer summarizes general rules and does not evaluate any particular case.
Can the Adjustment Act be repealed?
Yes, in two ways.
The first is already written. Section 606 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) provides that the Adjustment Act will be repealed only when the president determines, under the Helms-Burton Act, that a democratically elected government is in power in Cuba; applications pending on that date would not be affected. Helms-Burton sets demanding conditions for that determination, including free elections with international observers, respect for civil liberties and progress toward the return of or compensation for confiscated property.
The second is for Congress to pass a law repealing it. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), efforts to repeal it or give it an expiration date had not succeeded. The most recent bill found is S. 4983, introduced by Senator Bernie Moreno on July 15, 2026, whose section 202(a) would repeal Public Law 89-732; it was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. There is also a bill pointing the other way: H.R. 7521, introduced on February 12, 2026, would eliminate the conditional repeal clause in section 606 of IIRIRA; it too has only been referred to committees. See Debate and Future.
What does the Helms-Burton Act say?
The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act, known as Helms-Burton, was signed on March 12, 1996. It has four titles:
- Title I: tightens international sanctions and writes into statute the economic embargo as it stood on March 1, 1996.
- Title II: deals with assistance to a free and independent Cuba and defines what a transition government and a democratically elected government are.
- Title III: allows Americans to sue anyone who "traffics" in property confiscated from them.
- Title IV: denies entry into the United States to those persons.
Successive administrations suspended the right to sue under Title III starting in 1996; the State Department stopped suspending it as of May 2, 2019. In January 2025, President Joe Biden announced a new suspension, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio withdrew on January 31, 2025.
The law does not regulate immigration, but its definition of a democratic government is the one the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) uses to condition the repeal of the Adjustment Act. See Amendments and Related Laws.
Why do only Cubans have a law like this?
The law responded to a specific situation in 1966. Tens of thousands of Cubans who had arrived since 1959 could not obtain residence without leaving the country, because a 1965 amendment had closed adjustment of status to natives of Western Hemisphere countries (section 245(c)). The Adjustment Act was passed "notwithstanding" that prohibition. According to President Lyndon B. Johnson, about 123,000 Cuban refugees could apply for it when he signed it.
There have been other adjustment laws for particular nationalities, such as the 1997 law for Nicaraguans and Cubans (NACARA) or the 1998 law for Haitian refugees (HRIFA), but they generally required filing before April 1, 2000. The Adjustment Act has no deadline, and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) described it in 2009 as an opportunity that no other group or nationality has.
The arguments for and against keeping it are summarized in Debate and Future.
How many Cubans have come to the U.S. since 1959?
There is no single record of all arrivals, because Cubans have entered by very different routes: as residents, on parole, as entrants or without documents. Some reference figures:
- Green cards: according to the series Pew Research Center published in May 2026, with data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the sum of annual admissions of Cubans as permanent residents between fiscal years 1959 and 2024 comes to about 2 million: this is our own estimate, the sum of the 66 annual figures in the series (1,995,900), rounded by Pew to the nearest hundred and mixing different sources from each era.
- Major waves: 260,737 people in the Freedom Flights (1965-1973), according to the State Department; 124,776 in Mariel (1980), according to the Coast Guard; about 33,000 rafters taken to Guantánamo in 1994, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
- The recent exodus: the same Pew series records 560,200 paroles and releases of Cubans between fiscal years 2022 and 2024.
These figures cannot simply be added together, because many people appear in more than one. See Data.
How many Cubans live in the U.S.?
According to a Pew Research Center analysis based on the Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey (ACS), in 2024 there were 2.9 million people of Cuban origin living in the United States, 23% more than in 2019. They are the third-largest Hispanic origin group in the country, after Mexicans and Puerto Ricans.
More than half (57%, about 1.7 million) are immigrants, that is, they were born outside the United States. Around 61% (1.8 million) live in Florida; according to Pew, no other Hispanic group is so concentrated in a single state.
Pew also estimates that in July 2023 there were 475,000 unauthorized Cuban immigrants in the country and that at least 250,000 more arrived between then and the end of 2024. See Present Day and Data.
What was Mariel?
It was the mass exodus of 1980 through the Cuban port of Mariel. It began with the crisis at the Peruvian embassy in Havana, where, according to a White House statement of April 1980, 10,800 Cubans had taken refuge. The government of Fidel Castro opened the port of Mariel and Florida exiles organized a fleet of chartered fishing and shrimp boats to pick up their relatives; according to the National Archives, the first boat reached Key West on April 21, 1980 with 48 people.
According to the Coast Guard, between April 1 and September 25, 1980, 124,776 Cubans arrived by sea, and 27 people died; the National Archives and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) speak of about 125,000. In May alone, 86,488 arrived, according to the National Archives.
Many of those who arrived did not qualify as asylees, and the administration of Jimmy Carter received them on parole under the label "Cuban/Haitian Entrant (Status Pending)." A 1986 law (IRCA, section 202) opened the way to residence for them. See The Mariel Exodus.
What was Operation Pedro Pan?
It was the departure of Cuban children and teenagers whom their parents sent alone to the United States between December 1960 and October 1962. The figure of 14,048 is the one given by the group of former participants Operation Pedro Pan Group; the Heritage Foundation estimated in 1980 between 13,000 and 15,000. According to that group, parents sought to avoid the communist indoctrination of their children, and the program worked mostly through visa waivers, run by the Catholic Church and the State Department.
In Miami, Father Bryan O. Walsh, director of the diocese's Catholic Welfare Bureau, played a central role. About half of the minors were placed under the Cuban Children's Program, which cared for them in 48 states and territories.
The program ended with the missile crisis in October 1962 (the group's page gives October 22 and 23). The figure of 14,048 is also given by Florida International University (FIU). See Operation Pedro Pan.
What was the 1994 rafter crisis?
It was the mass departure of Cubans on rafts and makeshift boats in the summer of 1994. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an uprising broke out in Havana on August 5 (the so-called "Maleconazo") and on August 13 Fidel Castro threatened to stop preventing departures.
On August 19, President Bill Clinton announced that Cubans interdicted at sea would no longer enter the United States and would be taken to the Guantánamo naval base, which, according to the GAO, reversed a policy of three decades. About 33,000 Cubans were picked up at sea and taken to that base.
The crisis was closed with two agreements. Under the one of September 9, 1994, the United States committed to admit at least 20,000 Cuban immigrants a year. Under the one of May 2, 1995, most of those held at Guantánamo could enter on parole, and those interdicted in the future would be returned to Cuba. See The Rafter Crisis.
What were the Freedom Flights?
They were the airlift, paid for by the United States, that took Cubans out from Varadero between December 1, 1965 and April 1973.
It grew out of the Camarioca crisis. On September 28, 1965, Fidel Castro announced that he would let anyone who wanted to leave go, and exiles began arriving by boat to pick up their relatives. To bring order to that departure, the two governments agreed in November 1965, through an exchange of notes by way of the Swiss embassy, on a memorandum of understanding that provided for 3,000 to 4,000 departures a month. In practice, the airlift ran two flights a day, five days a week.
According to the State Department, the airlift carried 260,737 people. The University of Miami speaks of almost 270,000 between December 1, 1965 and April 6, 1973. See Camarioca and the Freedom Flights.
Does this site replace a lawyer?
No. This site is a historical and educational work: it explains what the law says, how agencies and courts have interpreted it and what has happened with Cuban migration, always citing the source. It does not offer legal advice or evaluate specific cases.
The information can become outdated, because rules and court decisions change often; in 2025 and 2026, for example, the rules on parole, the debate over the I-220A and the public charge rule all changed. Every case depends on its facts.
To decide about your own case, the right step is to consult an immigration attorney or a representative accredited by the Department of Justice. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) publishes the list of recognized organizations and accredited representatives, and another list of free legal service providers for people in proceedings before the immigration courts.