Washington/Havana (EFE).- The United States government resumed flights to deport migrants to Cuba, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told EFE.
US authorities “resumed normal deportation procedures for Cuban citizens who have received final orders” to remove them from the country, the official said in an email.
The deportations include “rigorous safeguards” to prevent people who “may face persecution” on the island from being deported to Cuba.
The US Embassy in Havana will be responsible for monitoring that the Cuban government does not retaliate against the deportees, the official stressed.
“The United States continues to encourage Cubans” who wish to enter its territory to use “legal processes, including humanitarian permission,” announced last January by President Joe Biden’s Executive, added the DHS spokesman.
Cuba receives 123 migrants on deportation flights
A group of 123 irregular Cuban migrants deported from the United States arrived in Havana on Monday, the island’s Ministry of the Interior reported.
These migrants arrived in US territory through the land border with Mexico after leaving legally by plane (83 people).
Or illegally by sea and detained upon reaching the coast (43), in operations carried out between 2019 and 2022, also collected official media.
The US has been returning Cuban rafters to Havana on a regular basis in recent weeks.
But this is the first operation in more than two years of those considered “inadmissible” by Washington, people with final orders of expulsion.
Cooperation between the US and Cuba
The Ministry of the Interior pointed out that this flight “is the result of bilateral cooperation between Cuba and the United States in immigration matters.”
A matter on which a series of meetings have been held in recent months, the most recent at the beginning of April.
Cuba and the US have a bilateral agreement so that all migrants who arrive by sea are returned to the island.
In addition, both countries agreed last November to resume deportation flights for “inadmissible” migrants held at the border with Mexico.
At that time, the Cuban government already assured in statements to EFE that it was prepared to receive the first flight and that it was only waiting for the US to give its “proposal for the flight and the date.”
He also pointed out that the frequency of these flights was not set, but that there was no reason why they could not return to pre-pandemic levels, when they were carried out about twice a month.
The return of people designated as “inadmissible” was agreed in 2017, but was suspended with the outbreak of covid-19 and the cooling of bilateral relations after the “thaw” period.
deportation flights
Deportation flights from the US to Cuba, suspended in December 2020, shortly before the Democratic president assumed the Presidency.
A record number of Cubans have arrived in the North American country in recent months.
Both to the border with Mexico and to the coast of Florida, where migrants travel by raft from the island.
In March, more than 4,000 Cubans were detained by US immigration authorities off the coast of Florida, according to DHS data.
The new measure comes just weeks before Title 42 is lifted.
A sanitary restriction that allows the hot deportations of migrants of certain nationalities, including Cubans.
The numbers
According to data from the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office, in December 2022 more than 44,000 Cubans arrived at US border points, for a cumulative total of 313,488 who arrived throughout that year. .
In the first months of 2023, these figures decreased after the US launched a special program for Cuban, Haitian, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan emigrants, which allows them to enter the country if they have sponsors.
In parallel, the US began to reject migrants of those nationalities who illegally crossed its southern border with Mexico.
The US authorities have made 37 returns by sea, the most recent last Thursday.
In total, 2,514 rafters have returned to Cuba, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.