This April, 17,870 migrants from the Island entered U.S. territory; in the first four months of the year, 81,191 entered
14ymedio, Havana, May 17, 2024 — Up to 95,500 Cubans have benefited from the Humanitarian Parole Program promoted by the Biden administration since its entry into force in January 2023. Of these, up to April, there were already 91,100 Cubans in the United States.
Data offered in a statement by the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirm that migrants from the Island are the third nationality to benefit from this program, surpassed by Haiti, with 184,600, and Venezuela, with 109,200.
After ending Title 42 – a rule created by the Donald Trump Administration for the return of migrants during the pandemic – Washington decided in January 2023 to offer applicants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua a special permit or “humanitarian parole,” which it had previously initiated with Ukraine and Venezuela.
Data from the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirm that the Island’s migrants are the third nationality to benefit from humanitarian ’parole’
The update to April’s migratory data was announced a few days after humanitarian parole was denied to Liván Fuentes Álvarez, former president of the Municipal Assembly of the People’s Power. His flight permit was revoked just as he was about to board a charter airline that would take him to the United States, Martí Noticias journalist Mario J. Pentón reported.
Despite the fact that a source confirmed to the same media that they do “everything possible so that those who are members of the repressive apparatus of the Cuban regime cannot benefit from measures that are designed to help the Cuban people,” some members of the Communist Party have entered the United States through the parole program.
14ymedio denounced the case of Misael Enamorado Dager, who served as the first secretary of the Communist Party in Santiago de Cuba between 2001 and 2009, and now resides in Houston, Texas, after entering the country under humanitarian parole, as reported by the influencer Niover Licea on social networks.
Yurquis Companioni, a counterintelligence agent in Sancti Spíritus, also entered the United States through the southern border – after traveling the route from Nicaragua to Mexico – thanks to his sister, who already lived in the U.S. and was his sponsor for a six-year parole.
The Office of Customs and Border Protection also announced that in the month of April, 17,870 Cubans arrived in the United States. Although the figure is lower than the 19,566 who entered in March, the total number of migrants from the Island in the first four months of 2024 is 81,191, which represents more than double the 34,253 registered in the same period in 2023, and 12,782 fewer than in 2022.
In April, the United States allowed the entry of 41,400 migrants at the border crossings with Mexico through the online application CBP One. The total number has reached more than 591,000 since the system was introduced in January 2023.
In April, the United States allowed the entry of 41,400 migrants at the border crossings with Mexico through the online application CBP One
“As a result of greater surveillance, migration on the southwest border has not been increasing, reversing previous trends. We will continue to monitor migration patterns, which are constantly changing,” said Troy Miller, acting commissioner of the CBP.
The acting commissioner of the CBP, Troy Miller, said that the deployment of a greater number of Border Patrol agents has contributed to the “decrease” in the number of arrests on the border between the United States and Mexico. “We will continue to monitor migration patterns, which are constantly changing,” the statement added.
The Biden Administration also stressed that as part of the new restrictions, asylum will be prohibited to people who pose a risk to national security,” to those convicted of a serious crime, to those related to terrorism and to those who are “considered a danger to the security of the United States.”
Previously, the determination of eligibility for asylum was given at a later stage in the process, upon determining the merits of asylum applications, detentions and expulsions.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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