The Government of the Bahamas returned a group of 130 irregular migrants to Havana on Wednesday, reported the Ministry of the Interior (MININT).
The group made up of 107 men, 22 women and one minor was returned to Cuba by air, in the fourth operation of its kind carried out by the Bahamas this year under the agreements signed between both nations.
The day before, a group of 16 rafters from two illegal departures was also handed over to the Cuban authorities by the United States Coast Guard Service (SGC), according to state media.
So far in 2023, more than 2,200 irregular migrants from Mexico, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and the United States have been returned to Cuba.
Cuba maintains that it maintains its commitment “to a regular, safe and orderly migration” and insists on “the danger and risk conditions for life that illegal departures from the country by sea represent.”
For several months now, the United States has seen record numbers of migrants trying to cross irregularly at its southern border, motivated, for the most part, by a new unprecedented migratory exodus from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
In the case of Cuba, a total of 224,607 citizens arrived at the southern US border in fiscal year 2022 –between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022–, according to the Customs and Border Protection Office of said nation.
The Government of Washington implemented at the beginning of this year a policy to welcome 30,000 migrants per month from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua.
In parallel, it will immediately expel migrants from those countries who try to cross into its territory irregularly to Mexico.
Mexico, for its part, agreed to admit 30,000 migrants a month who are expelled from US territory.
