Since last Saturday José Antonio Martínez has tried to access the CBP One application, the apps of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service through which migrants can apply for asylum. “Da saturated and error when entering the data,” this habanero tells 14ymedio. “There are many doubts because things come in English, that has us stranded.”
Martínez is in the Casa del Migrante, located in Ciudad Juárez, on the border with El Paso (USA), his wife and two daughters left the island at the end of November and are already in Utah. “In Chiapas, Migration detained me and kept me locked up in the Siglo XXI station for 15 days, a prison where human rights do not exist,” he says, adding that he paid extortion of $650 and only then did they give him a safe-conduct that allows him to stay 60 days in Mexico.
“I’m afraid because CBP One doesn’t give it. They say here (in the shelter) that there are no more appointments and if they don’t give it to me they can deport me and I can’t return to Cuba,” says Martínez.
The apps has presented saturation, the 200 people who are processed daily at the border, are part of the 8,600 requests that were received through the application between January 8 and February 28. This Tuesday, January 31, a new call for the month of March opens.
“They are asked to enter daily because spaces are opened every day for people who may cancel or CBP itself opens more spaces per day,” explained an official to the youtuber Ismael C. Requejo. At the Chaparral checkpoint there are two opening hours, at 7 in the morning the authorities process 100 migrants and at 12 noon another 100, this process is replicated at each border crossing between Mexico and the US.
In the vicinity of El Chaparral, a 75-year-old woman asks for help to obtain an asylum appointment through CBP One. Miriam Díaz Rubio left the Island on December 24, surrounded by harassment by State Security after having participated in the demonstrations of July 11 and belong to the platform defending the human rights of the activist Guillermo del Sol.
“People from other provinces came to my house and the head of the sector already had it with me. He told me that he was not killing me because it wasn’t worth it, but he was going to take it with my grandchildren and my family. He sent me many summons and there I bring,” Miriam Díaz told Ismael C. Requejo. “The same platform helped me find the money to come jumping.”
Díaz is being supported to enter the apps through the mobile and be able to obtain an appointment that will be for the month of March, while he must remain in Mexico.
Anibel Cruz Alberto and Julio Sosa, teacher and engineer, respectively, received confirmation of their appointment on the 27th. They left the island because they refused to participate in a repudiation rally.
“In all workplaces they force you to participate in things,” denounced Alberto, a teacher by profession. “I never agreed and that’s why they harassed us and besieged us.”
“Freedom in Cuba has not existed for a long time,” Sosa said. “They kept us oppressed for a long time, forcing us to do things we didn’t want, when we didn’t go and didn’t participate, they threatened us and fired us from work,” revealed this 47-year-old engineer.
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