US visa-free residency for Cubans ends

US President Barack Obama has ended the longstanding policy that grants residency to Cubans who arrive in the US without visas.

The 20-year-old policy allows Cuban migrants who reach US soil to become legal permanent residents after a year.

In exchange, Havana has agreed to start accepting Cubans who are turned away or deported from the US.

In a statement on state television, the Cuban government praised the move as "an important step in advancing relations'' between the US and Cuba.

It is unclear where relations between the two countries will go now.

Mr Obama's successor, President-elect Donald Trump, has taken a much tougher stance and could reverse the change.

Until now, the so-called "wet foot, dry foot" policy has applied solely to Cubans, tens of thousands of whom reached US soil last year, including by land.

Thousands of other Cubans are intercepted at sea every year by the US coast guard before they can get a dry foot on land.

Immigrants from other countries who come to the US without a visa could be arrested and deported.

Cubans in the United States

• There were more than two million people of Cuban ancestry living in the United States in 2013, about 68% of whom lived in Florida
• The number of Cubans entering the US has increased significantly since President Obama began his rapprochement with the island's government. In the 2014 fiscal year, 24,278 Cubans arrived in the US. Nearly double that number - 43,159 - arrived in 2015, and more than that arrived last year
• Public opinion polls suggest that recent arrivals and Cuban-Americans born in the US are more supportive of warming US-Cuba relations than those who arrived before 1980