The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed that 22 Cubans are awaiting their “resettlement in a third country” at the Migrant Operations Center at the Guantánamo Naval Base (MOC). Among them is the activist Yeilis Torres Cruz, who spent ten months in prison under investigation for the crime of attack after being attacked by the official announcer Humberto López.
The former prosecutor, who was regulated, found the escape on a raft as a way out along with seven other peoplebut on their journey to Florida they were intercepted and only she was given the opportunity of “credible fear.”
After six months in Guantanamo, Torres “remains in a migratory limbo,” explained her husband, Pavel Pérez, to Radio and Television Martí. “At the base, the disciplinary regulations are rigorous. They have restrictions on free mobility, they lack internet access and they must go with an escort to the nearest beach.”
On November 18, just the day she turned 35, Torres received a video call from her husband, who showed her a stuffed toy and a chocolate bonbon as a gift. As she revealed, among the rules to follow in Guantánamo is the possibility of making three five-minute calls, “always under the presence of a guard” and having a bicycle to make trips. It is forbidden to talk to the media and receive money.
“They expressed credible fear of persecution and torture,” noting the risks they ran in case of being returned to the Island
Those held in Guantánamo were rescued by the Coast Guard between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022, published Radio Marti.
As detailed by an official to the same publication, the rafters were interviewed by personnel from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS for its acronym in English). “They expressed credible fear of persecution and torture,” noting the risks they ran in case of being returned to the Island.
The Department of State provides for the custody and care of migrants in the MOC until the time of their resettlement in a third country.
A US State Department spokesperson he told the BBC that 445 people had been relocated to third countries through the Guantánamo-based Migration Operations Center since 1996. The vast majority were Cubans.
In addition to the 22 Cubans, three Haitians and three Dominicans are in the Migrant Operations Center, who according to the USCIS, “are not detained and can request their return to their respective countries whenever they wish.”
This Monday the Border Patrol saved two migrants who were about to drown in the Florida Keys. The chief officer of the Miami sector, Walter Slosar, specified on his social networks that 18 people were rescued, without disclosing their nationality.
Slosar reported on Saturday the arrival of eight rafts with the landing in the Florida Keys of 180 Cubans in the last 48 hours. All were taken into the custody of the Border Patrol, to continue their process.
That same Saturday 53 people were repatriated to the island on board the ship William Flores. “The Coast Guard and associated agencies are patrolling the Florida Straits, Windward and Mona Passages to stop illegal migration,” District Seven Petty Officer Nicole Groll reiterated.
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