The United States Coast Guard repatriated this Tuesday 19 Cubans aboard the ship issac mayo. According to data from that agency, since last October 1 there are already 5,590 rafters who have seen their attempt to reach Florida frustrated.
Although the brief message on social networks does not offer more details about these rafters, it is known that after having been arrested and repatriated, the US excludes them from any possibility of aspiring to the parole humanitarian.
In mid-January, the Secretary of Homeland Security of the United States, Alejandro Mayorkas, warned that “Cubans and Haitians who go to sea and land in the US will not be eligible for the new process.”
The US has strengthened security on the high seas to combat the flow of migrants, especially Cubans. An hour before announcing the deportation of the compatriots, he warned of the planes that fly over Florida waters and the boats that are patrolling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week” the passages of the Straits of Florida, Windward and Monkey.
These surveillance actions, the Coast Guard assured, allowed the crew of two rafts to be saved “before they sank.” Similarly, they insist migrants avoid crossings in rustic rafts, in addition to reminding them that “the weather reports from your application or from the local news outlet do not necessarily report conditions on the high seas.”
This Monday the Dominican Republic repatriated 12 rafters. Two women and 10 men were handed over in Havana to the authorities at the José Martí International Airport, public Latin Press.
Among these returnees, the majority from Ciego de Ávila, was a person with a “serious criminal record,” according to the official Cuban agency, which specified that he was the only one of the migrants who “was transferred to one of the investigative bodies.” .
This group left the Island in a boat in November of last year. The plan was to reach the Dominican Republic and from that point start the journey to the US, but the authorities detained them and handed them over to Migration.
For two months Denis Adolfo Mora Claveles, Noriel Peña Pérez, Manuel Antonio Ferran Vera, Osnier Ramos Morell, Osbaldo Hernández Llorca, Ricardo Hechavarría Ávila, Albert Dimet Soler, Yarisel Castellanos Jerez, Orleydis Olivet Castillo, Norge Llada Fabré, Héctor Daniel Castellanos Ramos and Yurisdaimis Torres Martínez, remained in the Haina Migration Detention Center.
Although the Cubans tried to avoid deportation by joining the refugee program, they were not listened to and were returned to the Island.
So far in 2023, more than 20 operations to return irregular migrants have been carried out, which exceed 2,000 from Mexico, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and the United States.
Another story of rafters was revealed by the Cuban Yanet Larena Rodríguez. Through your space on Facebook He said that his father, Casildo Larena Ibáñez, 60, is in custody in a detention center in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas.
Rodríguez asked for help to free his father, who is weak and without medication. He stressed that he has “two open-heart operations and three for colon cancer and has a deviated rectum” and under the conditions in which he finds himself “he will not be able to resist too much.”
This Cuban originally from Cienfuegos and with nursing studies wrote that her father was able to communicate with her clandestinely and detailed her situation.
The weather in the Florida Straits is grossly unpredictable. Weather reports from your local news outlet or app doesn’t necessary report offshore conditions. The people rescued below were fortunate our @CBPAMORegDirSE partners got to them right before their vessel sank. pic.twitter.com/N3MJYTH6Ur
—USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) February 14, 2023
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