Cuban-American politicians and local officials in Florida are calling for reconsideration of the 1966 American policy giving Cubans broader protections than other immigrants arriving in the United States receive.

Critics of the policy argue it's being abused by a new wave of Cuban arrivals, The New York Times reports. They say the recent arrivals are economic, not political refugees, and travel regularly back and forth between Cuba and the U.S.

The Cuban Adjustment Act was written during Soviet Union and U.S. tensions as an attempt to offer safe haven for Cuban refugees facing oppression from a Communist government. The law allows Cubans who reach the U.S., through legal or illegal means, to become permanent residents in a year and a day. Five years after, they are allowed to become U.S. citizens.

Cuban-American legislators say because of the recent effort by President Barack Obama to normalize Cuba and U.S. relations, the 1966 law is unnecessary and irrational to remain in place. They argue the point of the law was to protect refugees from an outlaw government when they did not have an option of returning home.

"The president's actions on Cuba have severely undermined the law because he has essentially recognized the Cuban government as legitimate," said Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Cuban-American legislator from Florida. "The United States has offered one of the most generous immigration laws perhaps in history, and certainly that is being abused systematically."

U.S. legislators also say criminals are abusing this policy in order to bring money between Cuba and the United States and to flee to Cuba when they are facing risk of arrest.

Curbelo plans to draft legislation making it more difficult for Cubans who come seeking employment and not for protection from the Castro government.

As of now, the Obama administration has no plans to repeal the 1966 policy or the 1995 immigration policy allowing the United States Coast Guard to return Cubans they stop at sea to Cuba if they don't claim political persecution.

Cubans seeking U.S. residency feared the new talks with the Cuban government would change this policy. The number of Cubans heading to Florida in rafts and boats surged in the past month. The numbers have since declined once there was clarification no change was imminent.

In 2014, 40,000 Cubans received tourist visas, most valid for five years. Nearly 20,000 arrive legally to the U.S. with visas. Thousands reach the United States through the Mexican border, by air or by sea.

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