Martinez was an ILLEGAL alien himself once upon a time!!!
From Wikipedia: Martinez was born in Sagua La Grande, Cuba to Gladys V. Ruiz and Melquiades C. Martinez.[1] He came to the United States in 1962 as part of a Roman Catholic humanitarian effort called Operation Peter Pan, which brought into the U.S. more than 14,000 children. Catholic charitable groups provided Martinez a temporary home at two youth facilities. At the time Martinez was alone and spoke virtually no English. He subsequently lived with two foster families, and in 1966 was reunited with his family in Orlando.
The operation:
An American Catholic priest, Father (later Monsignor) Bryan Walsh liaised with Washington to coordinate visas for the children. Pan Am flights took the children to Miami, Florida, which, in the Operation’s jargon, was referred to as “Never-Never Land”; the children became known as the “Peter Pans.” The proposals of the operation were that the children were to be joined by their parents within a matter of months.
In 1961, the United States closed its embassy in Cuba in preparation for the Bay of Pigs invasion. In response to the invasion, Cuba reached a deal with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to host nuclear weapons in the country, leading to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. During the crisis, the US government cancelled flights between the two countries; this had a dramatic effect on the operation, reportedly leaving up to eight thousand children in Miami still awaiting their parents.
When it became obvious that the parents would not soon be coming to the United States, the Catholic groups collected the children from Miami camps and dispersed them among orphanages and foster families throughout the country. Some alternate routes were discovered. Parents would fly to a third country (often Mexico or Spain) from Cuba and would have to wait in limbo to obtain a visa that would allow them to travel to the United States. The United Kingdom allowed Cuban children to fly to Jamaica with British visas, then fly directly to the United States. Although Operation Pedro Pan was meant to be a clandestine program, the Cuban government discovered it, but allowed the program to continue.
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Looks to me like he had a Visa. Looks to me like the Catholic Church helped in the right way on this one . . .
This is just what I am questioning!
It is difficult for an born American citizen to understand the legal process to be an Immigrant. The scrutiny that you have to go through in your home country, to supply a ton of family history, of yourself, your parents, your employers, all your previous residences since you were born, certificates of births, marriage, deaths, and a whole lot more papers BEFORE you can even be eligible to get an interview with a Consular Officer at the U.S. Embassy or General Consulate!
It took me 3-1/2 years to go through that process before I could get a visa
Do you think that was possible in Castro's Cuba? I THINK NOT!!
Mel was "SENT" at the age of 15. How was he "SENT" without a valid visa??
He was sent on out on a mission that Castro apparently did not opposed, but never the less or under what circumstances he came here, he did NOT went through the LEGAL immigration process.
But it sounds very nice on his web site: "Was sent at age 15."
Here are some excerpts I found about this issue:
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Neither program could have functioned without U.S. government support. Responding to a request from Father Walsh, the State Department immediately arranged for the British government to allow Cuban children to fly to Jamaica using British visas. From there they would travel directly to the United States. To streamline the process, State Department officials-in a highly unusual step-then persuaded the Justice Department to give Father Walsh authority to issue visa waivers to the Cuban children he and James Baker wished to transport. Such waivers, normally granted only in emergency situations, soon allowed Pedro Pan children to fly directly from Havana to Miami on commercial flights. The State Department also aided the program by allowing Walsh and Baker, who returned to Cuba, to communicate via diplomatic pouch.
In discussing the U.S. government's eagerness to assist Walsh and Baker, Triay argues that timing was important. When Walsh met with State Department officials in early 1961, the CIA was preparing for the Bay of Pigs invasion, which depended on the participation of the Cuban antiCastro underground. According to Triay, a large number of these operatives were willing to fight only if their children's safety could be assured. Therefore, not surprisingly, theirs were the first children served by Operation Pedro Pan. After the failed invasion, Triay argues, the State Department lost enthusiasm for the program, but allowed it to continue because it facilitated the emigration of middle- and upper-class Cubans, causing a brain drain that the United States hoped would undermine Castro. In addition, assistance to Cuban refugees of all kinds demonstrated to other countries in the hemisphere the U.S. resolve to help communism's "victims" (p. 29)
. Why the Cuban government allowed this exodus of children, whose secrecy could not be maintained for long, is less clear. Triay suggests that Castro saw emigration as an effective means of ridding the island of potential dissidents. Triay believes, moreover, that forcibly preventing the movement would have generated negative publicity for the regime, playing to the U.S. charge that Cuba had become a totalitarian state.
The question of just how influential these rumors were is important in assessing the value of Operation Pedro Pan. In his enthusiastic defense of the program, Triay argues that it succeeded because it gave parents exactly what they wanted: the opportunity to protect their children from a communist state. Viewed from another angle, however, Operation Pedro Pan gave these parents the opportunity to act on their wildest fears in a moment of mass panic, prompted largely by false rumors and a deliberate program of misinformation. If Baker and Walsh had never organized the program, it is possible that after the initial hysteria had subsided and the rumors proved unfounded, parents could have made better-informed decisions about their children's future. Very likely, most of them would have ultimately opted to emigrate. But such a process, while certainly difficult, would have spared them and their children the trauma of separation.