The Cuban government once again accepts the return by air of migrants detained by the United States on its border with Mexico, although this option will only be applied for the moment to “occasional” groups, according to detailed the Reuters agency.
The measure, promoted by the Barack Obama Administration in 2017 and suspended during the coronavirus pandemic, is a “new but limited tool to curb the number of Cubans crossing the border,” three anonymous US officials told Reuters.
The officials pointed out that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) is holding a dozen citizens of the island whose asylum application was rejected and that the United States intends to return them to Havana. However, they are waiting for there to be enough Cubans in the same conditions to organize a deportation flight.
Despite the fact that the repatriations of Cubans detained at the border with Mexico had been interrupted during the pandemic (there were 1,500 deportations the previous year), the Joe Biden Administration regularly returns Cubans who arrive by sea. The number of those sent to Havana by the US Coast Guard amounts to more than 5,600 so far this year.
The Joe Biden Administration regularly returns Cubans who arrive by sea. The number of those sent to Havana by the US Coast Guard amounts to more than 5,600 so far this year
According to Reuters, the measure sends a “symbolic message” to dissuade other groups of potential Latin American migrants from trying to cross the Mexican border, and seeks to contain, at least partially, the flow of Cubans who advance to the United States from Nicaragua, through of the “route of the volcanoes”.
The US detained 2.2 million Latin Americans at its border during 2022, which represented a record. At least half were prevented from passing and returned to Mexico, while only 2% of the detained Cubans were unable to enter US territory.
The agency adds that the US State Department, the White House and the Immigration Service did not offer any comment on the cases.
This week, two senior American officials –Rena Bitter, Undersecretary for Consular Affairs of the Department of State, and Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services– visited Havana to speak with the Government about the serious migration situation between the two countries.
In addition to the complete resumption of consular services in Havana as of 2023, Bitter and Mendoza expressed their “concern” about the human rights situation on the island, the lack of freedoms and the imprisonment of hundreds of activists.
The mass exodus from the Island has already exceeded 224,000 Cubans who have arrived in the US in just one year. The figure falls short of the previous migratory waves, in 1980 and 1994, and is increasing.
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