Agents from the National Migration Institute (INM) have been holding 24 Cubans for three days at the Escárcega, Campeche facilities. The island’s nationals are part of a contingent of 145 migrants who were tricked into this place last Wednesday. “In less than 24 hours they are going to obtain an exit document,” the officers offered, according to a video sent to 14ymedio.
Meanwhile, they are kept confined in a room measuring three by two and a half meters. “What crime did we commit? No one tells you anything. We trust their word and they have us imprisoned,” Alexander Ramos Rivera denounced. “Now they say they rescued us. From what? We have protection. They can’t keep us like this, there are children.”
In a concise statement from Migration It is indicated that the Cubans were traveling in two private buses along with another 20 migrants from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, who were taken to Escárcega for “not proving their legal stay.”
The report omits that the detainees presented an amparo granted by a judge to avoid being deported during their journey to the border with the United States. Another inconsistency is that they state that the buses did not have a company name, when in images uploaded to Facebook by the State Police it is observed that one of the vehicles belongs to the company ExPreso Travel & Tour.
On September 26, Migration intercepted two buses in which 42 Cubans were transferred to the United States. The group was divided, and 18 of them were taken to various migratory stays until they reached Las Agujas, in Mexico City, where a high position of Immigration demanded 70,000 dollars in exchange for not deporting them.
After several days incommunicado, the Cubans were released, but not before being warned by agents of imminent deportation if they were detained again. Through Facebook groups, they shared what happened. This is how some of the current group tried to avoid a similar case and processed an amparo. Only once it was granted to them, they undertook the journey in search of the American dream, something that was cut short on Wednesday, near the town of San Francisco Kobén, in Campeche.
Acquaintances of the detainees contacted the social activist Linda Isabel Cancino Orantes, who promoted amparos for the immediate release of the detainees, arguing that “they did not commit any crime, they were led under false pretenses to the Escárcega station and are kept imprisoned in quarter”.
The legal resources have been rejected by Migration. According to the complaint before 14ymedioThe person directly responsible for this is Gil Manuel Larios Gutiérrez, director of the INM in Campeche.
In the list of detainees are the children Leduan Alfaro Marques (5 years old), Yunismari Cedeño Meneses (12 years old), Nahomys Gómez Meneses and Darek Colarte Carmenate (4 years old).
The adults are Lázara Cecilia Márquez Díaz, Liannys Durán Núñez, Mayra Sarduy Sosa, Ana Regla García Bonet, Yunieska Meneses Santana, Nelyn Carmenate Pérez, Sarahis Almaguer Labrada, Yenisei Núñez Peña, Yurenia de la Caridad Martínez Díaz, Kamila Machado Morales, Darian Villafuerte Feut, Mariano Onairam Alfaro Mecías, Yoandri Trimiño Piño, Ismael Yunión Hernández Romero, Alejandro Rodríguez Ortega, Rolando Guerra Barak, Juan David Medina González, Raúl Figueroa Fundora, Alexander Ramos Rivera and Joel Campana Quevedo. All of them had their passports seized.
Faced with increased surveillance and National Guard checkpoints in central Mexico, Cubans have taken the route along the Gulf of Mexico, which passes through the states of Tabasco, Veracruz and Tamaulipas until reaching Matamoros or Reynosa to cross the Rio Bravo to the US
In the last 18 days, 242 Cubans have been detained. Two arrests occurred this Friday in marginal areas of Campeche. They located 29 people during an operation in the Pablo García neighborhood in the Calakmul area, another 26 from the Island were intercepted in the Leovigildo Gómez neighborhood.
Nearly 200,000 Cubans have arrived by land in the United States and more than 6,000 by sea since October 2021.
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