Antonio Pacheco and the Fake story of the Cuban Adjustment Act

What we’ve seen so far, and according to his statements Antonio Pacheco didn't ask for asylum in the United States fearing the communism to which he represented in his international career as a baseball player.

Almost a month after his arrival in the U.S. the star Cuban player Antonio Pacheco declared to the website Centro Tampa that he wanted to become a coach in the Major League Baseball.

Though the player refused to speak about politics because, as he stressed: “I am not a politician. Baseball is my thing and teaching”, his decision of "taking refuge in the United States questions, once again the so-called Cuban Adjustment Act.

Pacheco, assured to "be requesting the Cuban Adjustment (asylum). As all Cuban who arrives to North American soil and wants his papers to be in order. I won't be an illegal foreigner here and I am trying to get my work permit, my driving license and I want to contribute to society”, he said.

"The Cuban Adjustment Act – according to the Cuban encyclopediaEcured-is a legislative monster adopted in 1966, with the deliberate purpose of motivating the illegal exodus of Cuban citizens into the U.S. This Act is one of a kind in the world; it offers Cubans who arrive illegally in the United States privileges that no other citizen of any other nationality or country receives."

According to declarations of the senator of Cuban origin Marco Rubio who has intended to make amendments to this Act. The Act was put into force in 1966 to offer refuge to those escaping from the "horrors" of communism.

In an interview to Las Americas Journal, Marco Rubio criticized those who use the Law to stay in the United States using alleged reasons of political sort that: "The Cuban Adjustment Act allows any Cuban to enter U.S. territory with the argument that they are escaping due to political persecution. But if afterwards you travel back like 16 times a year… you are no longer that afraid.

As website Centro Tampa reads: "Pacheco Massó, 50 years old, resided in Canada and worked as trainer in the neighboring country, thanks to a job contract with Cubadeportes, company of the Cuban government which exports the sport."

“I travel from Cuba to Canada for a job contract and lived there for a year and half. I worked in a baseball academy for children”, said Pacheco Massó.

“I played 22 national series with the Cuba team; I made it 16 times to the national team; I was captain of the national team for 16 years. I went to three Olympic Games, I coached the Cuban team in one Olympic Games, I coach Santiago de Cuba team for 7 years, we obtained three championships and a ended runner-up in another one”, said Pacheco in his interview to the Tampa newspaper.

He also said "he holds the record in Cuba with the best life batting average with .334 and he ranks among the best 10 Cuban baseball players. He also holds the record for more hits with a total of 2,356."

Once asked why he hadn’t returned to Cuba after Canada, the player answered:

“We weighted everything, it was a family decision and we wonder: Where is a better place to be? In Canada, too cold, it was not the kind of weather we have in Cuba. In Tampa the climate, the people are very much like our thing, it’s a quiet place”, he said.

He also added, "here I want to feel like any normal person. It’s not easy to take a decision to enter or leave a country. It’s a personal decision. The United States offers me the opportunity that offers everybody, this is first world country.”

It’s striking that at the same time Pacheco made his statements in Tampa, the U.S., the country that offers "opportunities to everybody" deports dozens of thousands Central American children who arrived into the United States escaping from the violence and misery in their countries of origin.

There is nothing apolitical in becoming the accomplice of the so-called murderous Act that it’s being used, as a means of propaganda against Cuba. In the end this Act seeks to spur the illegal exits, even in the unlikely case of Pacheco, afterwards they portrait to the world the evidence of the Cuban socialism’s inefficacy. This act is indeed the same that has robbed the Cuban people from many sport talents trained by the Revolution over the last years.

Paradoxically, the most developed country in the world, so it seems, cannot do without the doings of a small country whose social system they have wanted to wipe out of the face of earth. Each home run of the Cuban players who play today in the MLB should embarrass them.

Pacheco's "decision" reveals once again the hypocrisy of the so-called Cuban Adjustment Act, used by many as political alibi to escape the suffocating blockade of the United States against the Island.

A blunt lie. Who attempts to strangle you, later becomes the savior to give you a quick CPR. Regrettably there are some who taking advantage end up choosing the bait of money over “people's affection.”