The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS, for its acronym in English) reported this Thursday of the resumption of procedures for the Permission (or Parole) program of Cuban Family Reunification (CFRP) at its embassy in Havana.
In a statement, USCIS explains that they will process applications to the program that are pending and that they have already sent notifications to beneficiaries, but that it will not issue “new letters of invitation at this time.” In fact, they started doing interviews on August 18.
The government body warns that the place “has limited capacity” and that applicants should not “take any action” without having received an appointment.
The USCIS also warns applicants in their text to have their mailing address updated. “We will not email or call you asking for money or fees,” they reiterate. “Don’t Become a Victim of an Immigration Scam.”
The decision to resume the CFRP was brought forward in early June, when the Department of Homeland Security explained that the decision was part of the search for “safe and orderly alternatives to irregular migration and its many dangers and indignities.”
“We will not email or call you asking for money or fees,” they reiterate. “He Don’t Become a Victim of an Immigration Scam”
The CFRP, established in 2007, “provides a safe and orderly path” to US territory for “Cuban beneficiaries of approved family-based immigrants,” the institution said at the time. The permit granted by this program allows the family member to travel to the United States and appear there before an immigration authority to process their residence.
The United States reduced the staff of its embassy in Cuba in 2017, after some thirty of its diplomats suffered mysterious health incidents known as “Havana syndrome” and whose reasons have not yet been clarified.
Since then, family visa procedures have been carried out in other embassies outside the island, mainly in Georgetown, Guyana, where hundreds of Cubans still have to wait for the resolutions of their procedures, not exempt from irregularities.
The United States Consulate in Havana resumed processing visas for immigrants on May 3, processing only the IR-5 category. Two months later, it expanded visa categories and began processing immediate relatives of US citizens, including spouses and children under 21.
Despite this resumption of procedures, US immigration authorities have made it clear on several occasions that the headquarters in Georgetown would continue to be “the main place of processing for most Cuban applicants for immigrant visas.”
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