(EFE).- More than 177,000 Cubans have arrived by land in the United States and more than 5,000 by sea since October 2021 in a new migratory wave from the Island to the North, which already exceeds that of the Mariel exodus” and is enlarging “the generational gap” on the Island.
The matter will be addressed this Saturday at the conference Cuban migrations under totalitarianism and its consequencesorganized by the Institute of Cuban Historical Memory and the group of former political prisoners Plantados, with the participation of representatives of the different waves of Cubans who have arrived in South Florida since 1959.
Luis Manuel Rolle, who came to the US in 1994 as a rafter, will take part in it. He was 16 years old. Today he is a retired captain in the US Army and a specialist in military and geopolitical strategy.
“Throwing 177,000 people into the water could have led the United States to an aggressive response. Now we are seeing that the Cubans can go to Nicaragua and from there they begin this very dangerous journey to the United States”
“I will explain from the sociological point of view the generational gap that these migratory waves leave within Cuba,” he told Efe.
The data from the agency in charge of the customs and borders of the United States (CBP) leave no doubt that the current Cuban exodus is out of the ordinary. With less than a month to go until the end of the fiscal year (the new one begins on October 1), there are 177,848 Cubans who have arrived by land. In fiscal year 2021 there were 39,303 and in pandemic 2020 14,015.
According to Rolle, “it is the largest migratory wave, including the Mariel, Camarioca, the Freedom Flights’ and (Operation) Peter Pan.” In his opinion, “what is happening now is that Cuba has made an agreement with Nicaragua to relieve this pressure cooker” that emerged after the social outbreak of July 2021.
“Throwing 177,000 people into the water could have led the United States to an aggressive response. Now we are seeing that the Cubans can go to Nicaragua and from there they begin this very dangerous journey to the United States,” he says.
“The Government of Cuba at this time is in favor of a mass exodus and launches its citizens on a dangerous journey through jungles and third countries with human trafficking,” added the also author of the YouTube channel. global epicenter.
For the journalist and former political prisoner Pedro Corzo, “we are now facing a gigantic migratory wave, the largest of all and one of the bloodiest due to the insecurity that many Cubans are facing,” he told Efe.
“We have read what is happening in the Darién jungle where so many people are dying, there are women raped and murdered,” says Corzo, who is the organizer of the conference.
Corzo adds that “there is one aspect that we cannot ignore, and that is that over the years these migratory waves have been accompanied by thousands of individual departures through different routes and through third countries.”
“Some have been exiled, deported, separated from the country they were born in, a despicable political figure. We are going to highlight all of that, we do not want it to be forgotten,” he says.
Irvin Morales, a clinical psychologist who went into exile from Cuba in 1991, tells Efe that “in recent times the migratory patterns of Cubans have reached levels never seen before.”
“The desperation that this indicates is more and more pronounced and that Cuban who finds that he is capable of mind and body to establish this journey, takes it”
“The desperation that this indicates is more and more pronounced and that Cuban who finds that he is capable of mind and body to establish this journey, takes it,” adds Morales.
Last week, the United States Joint Homeland Security Task Force-Southeast (HSTF-SE) reported in a statement that it has increased its “operational posture” “to address a recent increase in irregular maritime migration originating in the Bahamas and Cuba through the Straits of Florida.”
“The agencies that are part of HSTF-SE are increasing patrols and law enforcement by land, air and sea, day and night,” said the federal entity.
According to official data, since October 1, 2021, US Coast Guard crews have intercepted 5,392 Cubans at sea, compared to 838 intercepted during the previous fiscal year.
Most of those intercepted at sea are repatriated, unlike those who arrive by land that the Cuban government does not accept back, according to Rolle “in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
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