“Passengers without passports, please stay in your seats.” The phrase, which would sound strange on any other flight, is already a routine in the Aeroméxico company planes that make the route between Havana and the Mexican capital to conclude the trip, later, in Managua. Cubans continue to use that route to reach the United States.
Between hugs and tears, Dayuris and Julio said goodbye to their relatives this Wednesday before heading to the immigration check area of Terminal 3 of the José Martí International Airport. After passing the controls and approaching gate 13, from where boarding for Aeroméxico flight AM 052 would begin a couple of hours later, the couple felt that they had achieved “half the journey.”
“My sister filled out all the forms for us to get the parole humanitarian aid in the United States, but it is taking time and we prefer to wait for the response in Mexico,” says Dayuris. “We have a cousin in Monterrey who has offered us his house and perhaps we can regularize ourselves to work while we wait for the papers to travel to Miami “.
After the entry into force, last January, of a new program that offers up to 30,000 monthly permits for Cuban, Nicaraguan, Haitian and Venezuelan citizens to enter the United States, the number of travelers from Cuba who make the so-called “route of the volcanoes “, through Managua, has dropped significantly.
Cuban migrants must remain inside the ship until it takes off again, this time heading to Managua
However, there are still those interested in leaving the Island taking advantage of the flexibilities that the Daniel Ortega regime offers to Cubans who do not need a visa to visit the Central American country. Some because they do not want to continue waiting in Cuba and others because they fear that something will happen and their departure will be complicated, the truth is that “Havana – Mexico City – Managua tickets continue to be sold,” an employee of the airline admits to this newspaper.
Unlike a few months ago, when most of the travelers who boarded the Aeroméxico flight went to Nicaragua with a stop in Mexico City, now inside the aircraft some Cuban migrants are intermingled with Russian, Canadian and Europeans who, after a stay on the island, head north.
The difference between these passengers is that while foreign tourists disembark at the Benito Juárez Airport, Cuban migrants must remain inside the ship until it takes off again, this time towards Managua. They also have the obligation to hand over the passport when boarding the flight, a measure that has been in force since last October 30, when Aeroméxico resumed its flights to Havana.
Then, the company’s representatives reported that it was essential for travelers with their final destination Managua to buy a round-trip ticket without connections with other airlines, since they would be allowed to transfer at the Mexico City airport to an aircraft that not from your company. Almost five months later, the mechanism remains intact.
“We are calling passengers with final destination Mexico City to board. Passengers who do not have a visa wait to be called”
Dayuris and Julio’s travel document was withdrawn by airline employees before boarding the plane. “We are calling passengers with final destination Mexico City to board. Passengers who do not have a visa wait to be called,” an airline employee repeated several times in the boarding room of the Havana airport. A dozen people stood aside until the rest of the passengers entered the plane.
“Then they withdrew our passports and gave us a number with which we can recover it in Managua,” says Julio. In the Nicaraguan capital a “guide” awaits them who will take them to a modest hotel and the day after their arrival they have “arranged transportation” that will take them to the border with Honduras. “If everything goes well, next week we’ll be with our cousin in Monterrey,” he speculates. “The question is to go out, we’ll see.”
On the same flight that the couple traveled, there was also a retired teacher with two children in Miami who want to bring her “as close as possible to the” southern border of the United States, a father with his son who “in July turns the age to enter the Military Service and you have to get him out of Cuba as soon as possible” and two sisters from Güira de Melena in Artemisa who claim “to have a contract to dance” in Ciudad Juárez until they raise the money to get to Houston where an aunt lives.
They each paid close to $2,000 for the round trip, a return ticket they all hope they don’t have to use. With a tiny package of salted peanuts, all the food that the airline employees distributed on the way between Havana and Managua, they embark on a migratory journey about which they have more doubts than certainties.
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