Havana and Washington have accused each other of delaying legal immigration in order to provoke a migration crisis.

BY ANITA SNOW
Associated Press

HAVANA - The American mission here announced Wednesday it had overcome a severe backlog in U.S. immigrant visa requests and fulfilled its annual quota of 20,000 such visas for Cubans.

The visa backlog in the U.S. Interests Section had been a point of contention with the Cuban government, which earlier this year accused American officials of intentionally slowing down the approval process to spark a migration crisis.

''As of Sept. 16, 2003, the U.S. Interests Section, Havana, Cuba, has issued travel documents to 20,000 Cuban citizens, as required by the 1994 U.S.-Cuba Migration Accord,'' the mission said in a brief news release.

''Under the accord, the United States agreed to document for migration 20,000 Cubans per year in order to ensure the safe, legal and orderly migration from Cuba to the U.S,'' the news release continued. ``We urge the Cuban government to grant exit permits to all those Cubans who have received the U.S. travel documents. The United States is committed to and will continue to honor its obligations under the Migration Accords.''

It was unclear how American officials were able to catch up so quickly. In April, Cuban officials reported that only about 700 of the 20,000 immigrant visas required annually had been granted for the U.S. government's fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

American officials had said the backlog was caused by stricter screening under regulations adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks .

Mandatory interviews, extensive background checks and sometimes fingerprinting are now required for people from countries on the U.S. State Department's terrorism watch list -- which includes Cuba -- seeking a visa to visit or emigrate to the United States.

Before the new regulations took effect, a Cuban seeking to emigrate to the United States generally could get final documentation allowing travel within a week after qualification by U.S. consular officials. That process now takes several weeks.

During a string of hijacking attempts earlier this year, Cuban and American officials accused each other of trying to set off a crisis that would result in hordes of Cubans taking to the sea to reach the United States. Both countries denied the accusations.

In one such hijacking attempt, Cuba executed by firing squad three men who unsuccessfully tried to commandeer a ferry full of passengers to the United States.

The hijackings came during a Cuban crackdown on government opponents. Seventy-five dissidents were sentenced to prison terms of up to 28 years on charges of working with American diplomats to undermine the government.