In three weeks, 78 Cubans with Spanish nationality and travelers with a tourist visa have returned to the island, reveals businesswoman Helen Figueredo García to 14ymedio. These returns coincide, he assures, with the arrival of the Migration delegate Carmen Yadira de los Santos Robledo. “Her instructions from her are to return everyone” with this nationality.
Figueredo, originally from the Island and who manages the Facebook account Cubans in Meridaindicates that relatives of the returnees have already begun the process of “complaints before the National Human Rights Commission against the official” for acts of “discrimination and abuse of authority.”
This Cuban with Mexican nationality demonstrated this Thursday along with a group of natives of the Island in front of the headquarters of the National Institute of Migration (INM). They demanded a stop to injustices by agents of the institution. This day, she mentions that relatives of five Cubans were waiting to find out if they would be allowed to enter the country.
“It’s an injustice,” reiterates Figueredo. “These people save to be able to leave Cuba, visit relatives and others to buy medicines, hygiene products, food, things that are difficult to get there and they can no longer get to Mérida because they are arrested and returned. And others, although have Spanish or Italian nationality, violating their rights, they are not allowed to enter” Mexico. This happened on June 3 with a group of 19 travelers.
Pedro, a Cuban who settled in Puebla two years ago, says that many of those who travel to this destination are entrepreneurs and also informal merchants “what we know as mules“. They are people who supply the island’s black market, “people who, although they sell something expensive there, have given Cubans a break, because there is nothing there.”
These travelers also “buy wholesale in Mexico and sell to a second merchant on the Island who earns by offering the most expensive first-hand products.” In these months “it gives them business to carry personal hygiene, food and medicine because until December of this year they are free of taxes in Cuba” by a resolution approved by the Government of the Island that frees the importation of these products from tax payments.
Figueredo questions Immigration for pointing Cubans out as people seeking to emigrate to the United States. “Merida is not a bridge to reach the border. These people buy a round-trip ticket from the airline that costs at least $300. They spend a Migration filter on the Island”, he points out and adds that those who buy products to take them know that they have to pay travel agencies up to 150 dollars per extra bag.
Patricia González has had a tourist visa for 10 years since 2017. According to her comments, the last week of May she traveled to Mexico for an administrative procedure. On May 27, she arrived in Mérida on a Magnicharters flight and 13 other Cubans were traveling with her, including two minors. Of the group, “four adults and two minors passed through, the rest were returned to Havana after several hours without eating or drinking water.”
Francisco Yeran was also not allowed to enter. This Cuban arrived in Mérida in the company of his wife and one and a half year old daughter on May 6. “They treated us like dogs,” he explains. “When we arrived, they took her little girl from us and kept her for 15 days in a care center, without knowing if she was okay.” After several days of uncertainty, “they deported us without any clothes or money. We didn’t do anything illegal, simple, they didn’t let us pass.”
De los Santos, the Immigration delegate pointed out by the protesters, has complaints in Chiapas for acts of corruption before the Attorney General of the Republic.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14ymedio is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our journal. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
