Why the Cubans, Mr. President?

I have from time to time made the tongue-in-cheek observation that if the migrants pressing on our southern border could be expected to vote Republican the Democrats would be themselves down there with sleeves rolled up building a barrier to rival the Great Wall of China to keep them out.

Of course, that was just a surmise for which I had no real evidence. Until now. Hot Air's Allahpundit notes that the Biden administration has recently declared that any refugees seeking to enter the United States without proper authorization will be turned away and sent to wait in another country.

He wonders why that policy applies to people arriving by sea but not by land. Why is the Biden administration adopting for Cubans what was essentially Trump's Remain in Mexico policy for migrants seeking to enter the U.S. through the southern border, but not applying it to those migrants arriving through Mexico?

And as others have noted, it's odd (not really) that there's no outrage among Democrats or their media mouthpieces over the "cruelty" of closing our borders to people fleeing the oppression of a communist dictatorship. Yet we were constantly told that Trump's policy of not letting in migrants from across the Rio Grande was "inhumane" and "not our values."

Moreover, isn't it true that many of these potential Cuban refugees would be people of color? Why aren't there protests over the blatant racism of the Biden policy of slamming the door shut so that people of color can't get in? Trump was certainly harangued by cries of racism because he was building a wall that would keep dark-skinned Hispanics out.

So, where is the outrage from Democrats and the majority of the mainstream media? Why are these “cruel” policies toward potential dark-skinned migrants fleeing economic hardship and brutal oppression at the hands of a tyrannical government not being denounced as cruel racism? The silence, Harsanyi says, is almost deafening.

Well, perhaps we need not look too deeply into these questions to find plausible answers. Jazz Shaw, also at Hot Air, notes:

Compared to other Hispanic minority groups, Cubans tend to be more conservative in their politics and are more likely to register as Republicans. Trump overperformed with Cuban-Americans in 2020, a fact that very likely put him over the top in carrying Florida.

So with the Democrats in charge, it seems that the huddled masses yearning to breathe free and the wretched refuse of your teeming shore doesn’t include the Cubans.

Nor anyone else likely to vote Republican, but if this is the reason for pulling up the drawbridge so Cubans can't get in, it's a shameful disgrace. Yet what other reason could there be?

Some have suggested that Mr. Biden doesn't want thousands of people risking the treacherous 90 mile trip across the Caribbean, but the thousand mile trek across Mexico with heat, cartel coyotes and sundry other thugs is scarcely safer.

Others may be closer to the mark when they point out that Democrats don't want an influx of refugees coming from Cuba because it makes that socialist paradise look bad, and so it does and so it should, but if that's the reason for the difference in policies it's just as ignoble as keeping them out for fear that the Cubans will bolster the GOP in Florida.

Perhaps Mr. Biden will favor us with an explanation, but perhaps not. Perhaps even he realizes that nothing he can say would make what should be a humanitarian decision sound like anything other than a cold, heartless political calculation.