A record number of people are fleeing Cuba. Around 400,000 Cubans came to the U.S. over the last two years, which is more than the historic Mariel Boatlift and Balsero Crisis combined.

A major force in this recent wave of migration has a lot to do with economics. Food, medicine, power — all the basic necessities — are hard to come by for many people on the island.

For more insight, Marketplace’s Sabri Ben-Achour spoke with Guillermo Grenier, a professor of sociology in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University, where he focuses on immigration. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Sabri Ben-Achour: So Cuba has lost 4% of its population in two years as people leave. You just got back from a trip there. What is happening there that is driving so many people to leave?

Guillermo Grenier: It’s been happening a while, but it’s primarily an economy that just cannot get back to pre-2020 levels. And what’s worse is there’s no plan in sight. People are every day having a very rough time finding just the basics. Things are bad, but there seems to be a new sense of hopelessness.

Ben-Achour: In so many places, there was a big comeback, economically speaking, after the pandemic. Why did that not happen in Cuba?

Grenier: It’s a multitude of reasons. Since the 1990s, we’ve had two currencies where you have one for tourists — in essence, you know, there’s just an exchangeable currency for dollars — and the one that Cubans live their national economic lives with. Basically, economists from all over the world have been telling them, “You have to unite this currency. This is ridiculous.” Well, they did it, but they did it right in the middle of a pandemic. So, inflation just went rampant. And then you had the fact that the economy had doubled down on tourism, and then all of a sudden, pandemic was there and they had a one-trick-pony economy. And it didn’t snap back. Since they doubled down on tourism, all other sectors of the economy suffered. I mean, Cuba is importing sugar. Cuba’s importing just about every food product that finally makes it into the street if it does.

Ben-Achour: Cuba is not what you might call a “market-embracing” or “market-oriented economy.” Is the government there equipped with the tools necessary to kind of get out of this?

Grenier: Well, the short answer is probably no. Right now, there is a sense that the folks that want more opening up the economy particularly, have a leg up because the situation is so dire that folks are beginning to think somewhat outside the box and creating these small business enterprises. This is a big step forward. And they are growing; there is a class structure being developed not as quickly as during the Obama years. But even now, you do have these private-sector enterprises that are beginning to grow, and that gives one a sense that within the non-homogeneous ideological spectrum of Cuba right now, there is a liberalizing force at work. Whether they can actually pull it off? I’m not sure.

Ben-Achour: So, Cuba may have emphasized tourism as an economic engine at exactly kind of the wrong time. But it does have a large countryside. Is there no way for it to grow and export produce and have that be an economic driver?

Grenier: Oh yes, I’m sure there’s a way. It’s a very inefficient production and distribution system. But in the countryside, you do have more food, just because you have access to land. They just have not been able to coordinate — and this is kind of historically, it’s been a long time failing — the ability to coordinate production and distribution of food that ends up ultimately remaining local and not being distributed to the big urban centers. I mean, Havana is by far the largest urban center. It is by far the one in most need of food. There is production going on, but it doesn’t get out of the very local market of rural Cuba.

Ben-Achour: To return for a moment to this exodus of people, how is the Cuban government responding to that?

Grenier: So now they’re thinking of immigration — No. 1 it’s a problem, which is kind of new, in the sense that before there was always some justification, either blaming the U.S. policies of receiving, how we receive Cubans. But now they see it as a problem. And then now they’re saying, “How can we maintain in touch with these folks that are leaving?” It’s not unusual to have expats that live in other countries. For Cuba, it is, but in general in the world, that’s a phenomenon that’s been, you know, long understood. Now, they want to establish that link between the expat community, the diaspora community, and the country. The gut instinct is correct. I’m doing interviews of new arrivals here, and it’s clear that their motivation to leave is dominantly economics. Economics in Cuba is not that separate from the government given it’s a centralized economy. So, they blame the government for them having to leave, but it’s because of economic reasons that they’re actually you know, schlepping in from Nicaragua. And they’re immediately thinking of how to do business back in Cuba. The bright side of this huge immigration is that in the long run, it might benefit the Cuban economic development.

Ben-Achour: How are people getting to the U.S. from Cuba? How expensive is it to make that happen?

Grenier: It’s a costly trip to make. Trump closed the embassy; the consular services were shut down. People could not get visas to come legally to the United States without going to a third country. That opened up the land route, which is the dominant one right now. The first land route started in Ecuador. Ecuador shut that down requiring visas, and then Nicaragua in 2021 stopped requiring visas for Cubans. So now the most popular, if you want to use that word, way of getting through here is going to Nicaragua or to Mexico. But Nicaragua is the dominant route, and it costs about $15,000 or $16,000 to get from Nicaragua to the United States. Yeah, not many Cubans have that in their pocket. So, what you end up depending on is either the friends or relatives living abroad to loan you the money so you can take that incredibly risky trip. There’s a slowdown now because of U.S. policies, we’re allowing other ways for Cubans to get in through sponsorships and paroles, etc. Plus, we’ve opened up the embassy and consular services again so there are more folks trying to get visas. But still in September, there were 11,000 Cubans at the border in the southwest, which was 4,000 more than last month.

Ben-Achour: What has this influx of economic migrants meant for South Florida and for the U.S. immigration system, which has been under such strain?

Grenier: I cannot emphasize enough how chaotic it is in our southwestern border. It’s a very difficult environment for Cubans here. And that’s another thing that I’m finding as I interview them, they did not suspect it to be this difficult. It’s tough to get a job, and it’s tough to pay rent, and it’s tough to get health care. And you do get relief in that through the Department of Children and Families, which does an incredible job giving all immigrants their benefits in the state of Florida. But still, they’re limited. And they’re time-limited, as well as a scope of service. South Florida is used to immigration, but it still increases cost of living while deflating real wages. So, it’s not a an economic Nirvana here.

Ben-Achour: Do you see a world where Cuba has a chance to rebound economically?

Grenier: If the United States would approach a more, I don’t know, “normal,” to give it a word, relations with Cuba, even if you leave the embargo in place just because Congress has to deal with that. But do kind of an Obama move where you open up U.S. travel. When we talk about Cuba, you and I’ve been talking about these abstractions of economies, but the people are amazing. Their ability to cope, as well as their ability to “give what they have” part of their of their culture is incredible. I mean, I have little gifts from people from inside of Cuba that if you look at them, you’d laugh because they [seem like] nothing, but it’s what they had to give, and they give it gladly because they want. They’re that kind of folks. So, if the U.S. would change some of its policies, that would be the quickest way to Cuba could rebound. I don’t have faith, but I have a vision that if the United States were just to slightly change the policies, if we would just treat Cuba normally like every country, I think we would see Cuba rebound.