Wet Foot, Dry Foot
Wet Foot, Dry Foot shaped Cuban migration for two decades by treating arrivals on U.S. soil differently from those intercepted at sea.
Wet Foot, Dry Foot was the informal name for a U.S. migration policy applied from 1995 until January 12, 2017. Cubans intercepted at sea — those with “wet feet” — were generally returned to Cuba or sent elsewhere, while Cubans who reached U.S. territory — those with “dry feet” — were usually allowed to remain and seek permanent residency. President Barack Obama ended the policy immediately in 2017, stating that unauthorized Cuban arrivals would thereafter be treated more like migrants from other countries.
The policy grew out of the 1994–1995 migration agreements reached after the balsero crisis, when tens of thousands of Cubans took to the Florida Straits on rafts and makeshift vessels. It operated alongside the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, which allows qualifying Cuban nationals who have been admitted or paroled into the United States to apply for permanent residence after one year. Ending Wet Foot, Dry Foot did not repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act, but it sharply reduced automatic parole based solely on Cuban nationality.
The policy saved some people from return to political repression, but it also created a dangerous incentive to reach land at almost any cost. Families attempted crossings in overloaded boats, improvised rafts, and smuggling vessels, and many people died or disappeared at sea. The distinction between reaching a beach and being stopped a few yards offshore could determine a migrant's future. Critics called the rule arbitrary, while supporters argued that Cubans fleeing a one-party state deserved exceptional protection.
Since 2017, Cubans arriving without authorization may face detention, removal, or standard asylum proceedings unless they qualify for another form of relief. The end of the policy did not end Cuban migration; economic collapse, political repression, the July 2021 protests, and family separation continued to drive departures by sea and through Latin America. Its legacy remains visible in South Florida communities and in debates over whether U.S. policy should treat flight from dictatorship differently from other migration.