The Dominican Republic has established that, from now on, Cubans who transit through its territory must have the residence or citizenship of the country of final destination. Otherwise, they can present a multiple visa issued by any of these nations: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, countries of the European Union, Member States of the Schengen area or the Dominican Republic.
With the measure, announced this Thursday by the Latin Press agencywho claims to have had access to the original resolution of the Dominican General Directorate of Migration, it will be more difficult for the island’s nationals to use that country as a stopover en route to reach the United States by land.
However, warns the official agency, “there is still no clarity on the date on which the new decisions will begin to be applied.”
According to testimonies collected by this newspaper, given the high prices reached by tickets from Havana to Nicaragua, the main springboard of this latest unstoppable exodus, and the lack of dates for tickets to Managua, migrants are looking for cheaper options or, directly , other escape routes.
One of them goes, according to a migrant interviewed by 14ymedio in Mexico, from the Dominican to the Cayman Islands and Honduras.
Just a few days ago, the Dominican Republic Navy reported three operations carried out in the previous 48 hours in which they arrested a total of 113 people who tried to leave the country illegally, most of them Haitians. In one of them, on the Cabuya beach in San Pedro de Macorís, 24 Cubans were detained, in addition to three Haitians and one Dominican, who were preparing to travel to Puerto Rico on a boat.
What is paradoxical is that, on the one hand, it denounces that the United States “fails to comply with its legal obligation to grant no less than 20,000 visas per year” and, on the other, regrets that the same country has spent “weeks exerting pressure on governments in the region so that take action against the Cuban traveler”
On the same beach, the military unit reported without giving further details, a lifeless body was found.
This Wednesday, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, lashed out on Twitter –his usual channel of communication– against the United States, blaming it for the migratory situation that the Island is experiencing.
What is paradoxical is that, on the one hand, it denounces that the United States “fails to comply with its legal obligation to grant no less than 20,000 annual visas to Cubans, according to bilateral agreements” –which would facilitate the direct flow of Cubans to US territory– and, on the other, he regrets that the same country has been “for weeks exerting pressure on the governments of the region so that they take measures against the Cuban traveler, in a cynical effort to close the doors to the emigration that it has stimulated for decades.”
The foreign minister says nothing, in any case, about the measure taken last November by Daniel Ortega’s regime, in collusion with Havana, to establish a “free visa” for Cubans and thereby open the door of escape to the North.
Beyond the victimhood and the excuses of the foreign minister, Cubans continue to fight to get out and are doing so en masse, as witness the crowds at the Embassy of Panamaagain, these days ago, of people waiting for an answer about their transit visa for that country, also scales to Nicaragua.
To avoid this, instead of physically reading a list of winners, a public website the names and passport numbers of those who have been approved and can approach their offices to pick up their transit visa. This initiative, which constitutes a flagrant violation of the right to privacy of travelers, does not seem to have come from the Panamanian embassy, but from the Cuban Ministry of the Interior.
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