Republican Senator from Florida Marco Rubio was forceful this Friday in a meeting with Venezuelans held in miami. When asked by a reporter from Radio Television Marti If the current exodus “provoked by Cuba with the help of Nicaragua and Venezuela” constitutes “a hostile act or a threat to the national security of the United States,” Rubio replied: “Not just a hostile act. If it reaches a certain level, It’s considered an act of war.”
For the senator, “what Nicaragua did is very clear: it created an incentive, an escape valve for Cubans who came to the United States.”
“The Cuban regime has a long history of using emigration as an escape valve,” Rubio recalled, “letting those who don’t like them go and, at the same time, pressuring the United States to deal with them.” “.
He also said he understood those who risk their lives to leave the Island, but he warned of the dangers they face. “I don’t know if people know that when you make that trip, when you give yourself into the hands of these trafficking networks, they abuse women, they kill, they murder, they abandon you. If someone gets sick on that road, they abandon you. They assault you in the road. They are criminals and bandits.”
For the senator, “what Nicaragua did is very clear: it created an incentive, an escape valve for Cubans who came to the United States”
Radio Televisión Martí estimates that by the end of this fiscal year – which runs from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022 – around 150,000 Cubans will have entered the United States, more than the 125,000 who entered this territory by sea during the Mariel exodus, between April and October 1980.
The US media also asked Rubio if he would recommend the expulsion of Cuba and Venezuela from the UN Human Rights Council, as was done with Russia on Thursdayto which the Republican replied that “he has never considered that body as something legitimate” and that the United States should not be a member or pay a fee to the Council “until abusers like those countries are expelled.”
Similarly, and given the context of the event, he recalled the close relationship between Havana and Caracas, recalling that 10% of Venezuelan oil production goes to the island as payment for health services. “Half are spies, they are not doctors,” he asserted.
This same Friday, several travel agencies reported that the Mexican airline Viva Aerobus has suspended, without explanation, all its flights between Cuba and Nicaragua via Cancun. The last of them will be the one scheduled for this Saturday.
Mexico’s immigration policy is closely linked to that of the United States, regardless of who is in charge of the Administration of its neighbor to the north
Just on Wednesday, the governments of Cuba and Mexico concluded the fifteenth round of talks on migration, in which Both parties agreed to “guarantee a regular, orderly and safe flow of travellers”. The meeting took place prior to the visit to the island, in May, of the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Also on that day, the Government of Mexico returned to the Island a group of 32 Cubans who had entered its territory irregularly. It was the thirteenth operation of this type so far this year. In all of them, a total of 891 people who tried to reach the United States through Mexico have been repatriated to Cuba, according to official data from Havana.
Mexico’s immigration policy is closely linked to the United Statesregardless of who is in charge of the Administration of its neighbor to the north.
During the presidency of Donald Trump, already with López Obrador in office, Mexicans accepted the harsh Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP), known as “Stay in Mexico”, which caused almost 70,000 people, Most of them Central Americans, they were deported to Mexican territory and waited there for several months for a response to their requests for asylum in the United States.
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