Ángel Salinas – Translating Cuba

Mexican Immigration Rescues Nine Cuban Women Who Were Working as Prostitutes in a Bar

Migrants from Venezuela, Colombia and Jamaica were also working in the bar.

Navy personnel supervising the sealing of the King Bar, where prostitution was practiced. / Quintana Roo Federal Government

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 14 April 2025 — Immigration authorities in the state of Quintana Roo are reviewing the status of nine Cuban women, two Venezuelan women, two Colombian women, and one Jamaican woman who were rescued last Saturday by Navy personnel from the King bar, located on Bonampak Avenue in the Benito Juárez municipality of Cancún, where they were engaged in prostitution and offered escort services to clients.

“The crime of human trafficking is being investigated,” an official who requested anonymity told 14ymedio. According to official data, 31 cases for this crime were opened in the first two months of the year. So far in April, 72 searches have been carried out. “None of the women stated they were being held there against their will, although there is one anonymous complaint, so the investigation is ongoing.”

Initial investigations confirmed that prostitution was taking place there. “The women were offered like fruit in the market. Entry to a private establishment cost 5,000 pesos ($248), and the fee for a single encounter reached 15,000 pesos ($745). A quarter of that was given to the migrants,” the police officer said.

The place was promoted near Bonampak Avenue near Superblock 6 as “a VIP place to enjoy drinks for discerning palates,” the source told this newspaper.

The women who weren’t in the private rooms “signed up (escorted customers at tables). The cheapest drink in the place cost 500 pesos, according to one of the migrants; they were given half of the customer’s bill. A bucket (of beer) was sold for 600 pesos.”

There is additional information about the place, such as that “the migrants had to offer dances to clients in exchange for 250 pesos, which was continue reading

obviously a lure to get the subjects to consume drinks and, already intoxicated by alcohol, end up in the private rooms.”

Interior of the King Bar, where 16 women were present, nine of them of Cuban origin. / Quintana Roo Federal Government

“The end of the American dream—this is important to emphasize—without money or papers, job opportunities are minimal. Desperation has led many migrants to seek work in beer halls, bars, and cantinas, and in these places they are targets for trafficking networks.”

Activist María Ángel Vielma explained that another way women are lured to Mexico is with the promise of jobs and other false promises. “The abuser sees what their needs are and manipulates them. It’s bait disguised as love,” she said.

This was the modus operandi of Cuban-Mexican Cristóbal Paulino Fernández Viamonte, who was extradited to the country last March, where he faces charges of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Fernández Viamonte was arrested by Interpol last July in Medellín, where he presented himself as a successful businessman. The investigation indicated that the detainee led a network based in the state of Yucatán (Mexico).

Those close to the Cuban-Mexican would “cast the bait” to young women—mainly from Cali, Medellín, and Bogotá—and offer them jobs as waitresses in Cancún and Mérida, where the Cuban-Mexican is listed as the owner of supposed entertainment establishments.

Behind that facade were the Candela, Bandidas, and Tropicana Angus nightclubs, which were raided by Mexican authorities last July, resulting in the rescue of eight Colombian victims. In one of these operations, Soledad “A,” alias La Capitana, who operated the trafficker’s illicit businesses, was arrested.

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“We’ll See if We See Each Other Again,” the Last Message Her Daughter Sent Her Before She Disappeared in Mexico

Relatives reported the disappearance of Meiling Álvarez Bravarez and Samei Armando Reyes Álvarez from 21 December. / Margarita Bravo

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico city, 12 March 2025 — Margarita Bravo has not heard from her daughter, Meiling Álvarez Bravo, 40, and her grandson, Samei Armando Reyes Álvarez, 14, for 81 days, and the Cuban consulate in Mexico, to which she appealed, asked her to “stay strong.” The two of them, along with four other Cubans, Dairanis Tan Ramos and Elianis, Jorge and Lorena, who were in Tapachula, Chiapas, have been missing since 21 December.

“Breakfast is here, we might leave now, mami. Kisses, I’ll write to you later.” This was the last audio message Bravo received from her daughter that day. Months of uncertainty and worry have followed since then. This Havana native tells 14ymedio that her daughter and grandson left in search of a better future, but their journey has turned into a nightmare.

The woman says that the last point of reference for her family members was a house near Parque Hidalgo, in Tapachula. From this place they were to be picked up by a coyote identified by the alias Chapín. “The man was paid 2,000 dollars” to take them by boat to Juchitán, in the state of Oaxaca, so that they could avoid the checkpoints of the National Migration Institute (INM).

When she did not hear from Meiling and Samei, who usually provide travel updates, Margarita dialled their cellphones, but got no answer to the calls or messages. “I don’t know what’s happening, the messages aren’t being received.” continue reading

An acquaintance, she continues, filed a report with the Chiapas State Attorney General’s Office about the disappearance of Meiling and Samei. She also “presented herself at the Siglo XXI and Huixtla migration stations, but there is no record of them there.” She also contacted the Cuban Consulate in Mexico to present the case.

Dairanis Tan Ramos is among six Cubans who disappeared in Chiapas last December / Facebook/Dairanis Tan Ramos

From Nebraska (USA), another daughter, Mayelin, contacted the coyote, but he told her that he knew nothing about the Cubans, that “the National Guard probably had them.” When asked about their whereabouts, he changed his story and said that “they were probably arrested by immigration agents.”

This Chapín even suggested that they could have been victims of kidnapping by the criminal cells operating in the region. When questioned about the money he was paid for the transfer, he stated that the Cubans had left with another coyote. “I don’t have anything to do with them any more,” he said.

“We don’t know if it’s true or not, because he was the one who was paid,” says Margarita.

Meiling and Samei entered Mexico through the southern border on 18 December. They had started their journey on the 12th of the month, when they left the island on a flight to Nicaragua. According to Margarita Bravo, a couple of Guatemalan coyotes identified as Marilyn and Rafael took them to the Guatemalan border.

Among the missing is also Dairanis Tan Ramos. The migrant, from Camagüey, according to a cousin’s report on Facebook, has had no contact with her family since 18 December.

In addition to these disappearances, there has been a wave of kidnappings of Cubans in Tapachula. A man ordered “Take the Cubans away,” on his radio, to his armed accomplices, according to a witness. Since November, there has been no news of Reynaldo Leyva Izquierdo, 54, Dalviris Domínguez (47), Leonel Gutiérrez (28) and Jorge Luis Gutiérrez López (58), who didn’t make it to the USA .

In the same month, Cuban nationals Leydi de la Caridad Rodríguez Acosta and Ana Mercedes Capetillo Savón were also kidnapped and murdered. Their dismembered bodies were left in a waste tank between the Chiapas communities of Pumpuapa and Nueva Granada.

Translated by GH

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Cuba Delivered Poor Quality Medicines to Mexico at the Wrong Time for More Than Two Million Dollars

Cuban pharmaceutical company Neuronic Mexicana benefited from Birmex laboratories, revealed the Superior Audit Office of the Federation.

Birmex staff receiving the batches of medicines in their warehouses / Birmex

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 14 March 2025 — The laboratories of Biologicals and Reactives of Mexico (Birmex) – the state company responsible for buying and distributing medicines, and controlling their quality – covered up during fiscal year 2023 the payment of 46,695,400 Mexican pesos (2,348,358 dollars) to the Cuban-Mexican pharmaceutical company Neuronic for medicines that did not meet the quality standards required by Mexico.

The payment set off alarms during a Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF) of Birmex, which showed that some drugs did not comply with the requirements and that others were not even those requested by the Institute of Health for Welfare (Insabi), an institution created by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador that operated from 2020 to 2023.

In August 2023, Neuronic – which, with the permission of the Cuban regime, manages the salaries that Mexico pays to Cuban doctors who carry out missions in Mexico – was also favored by Birmex with a payment of 5,880,398 dollars, a source from the Health sector told 14ymedio. The reason: “contracts” for unspecified activities that took place between 2022 and 2023.

The audit, published last February, also yielded other significant figures: Birmex delivered to Neuronic, two years ago, 1,334,500 Mexican pesos (more than 67,000 dollars) as payment for 7,395 containers of 20 ampoules continue reading

of aminophylline, a drug for asthma and shortness of breath, and 1,181 containers with 10 bottles of fluorouracil, which is used in cancer treatments.

A tour of the warehouses of Birmex, the company in charge of buying and distributing medicines / Birmex

According to the investigation, the lots were delivered after the agreed deadline, which carried “a penalty of 160,100 pesos that was not covered.”

By contract, Neuronic also had to deliver to Birmex 30,203 packages of pilocarpine, 158,031 of atropine, 1,900,290 of chloramphenicol, 208,864 of diclofenac, 1,130,857 of prednisolone and 192,099 of cisplatin, drugs for a whole range of treatments. To guarantee delivery, Mexico gave the Cuban-Mexican company 23,258,500 pesos (more than a million dollars).

However, the audit found that the batches of chloramphenicol, pilocarpine and atropine delivered by Cuba – where all these medicines are missing – “do not correspond to the codes and descriptions that were required by Insabi.” Nor are they listed in the National Compendium of Health Input, an index of drugs endorsed for use in Mexico. This absence caused “several rejections by health institutions,” they said.

Another irregular deposit from Birmex to Neuronic was one of more than 15 million pesos (almost 700,000 dollars) for 10 batches of medicines that did not meet the requirements of the Federal Commission for the Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris), and that were still not rejected by the state.

Birmex warehouses also hold batches of the Cuban Abdala vaccine. / Birmex

The Government of Mexico has favored Neuronic again and again. The National Council for Humanities, Science and Technology (Conahcyt) awarded it $7,427 three years ago for a pharmacokinetic project for early detection of Alzheimer’s in rats.

In March 2022, Conahcyt received notification about four payments for other projects of the Cuban-Mexican company. It released the money on September 27 of that same year. For the so-called “validation of the production process and preclinical tests with CNEURO-120” – the drug intended for early detection of Alzheimer’s – $3,439 was paid. Later, as part of that same project, $15,037 was delivered and, in another phase of the investigation, another $4,028.

Other anomalies were detected in the course of the audit. In fiscal year 2023, Neuronic was not the only company that, having caused losses to Birmex, was protected by its managers. In the same situation are the company Almacenaje y Distribución Avior, which paid 819,630,000 Mexican pesos (more than $41 million), and Farmacéuticos Maypo, which paid 152,533,000 pesos (almost $8 million).

List of drugs purchased by Birmex from the Cuban-Mexican pharmaceutical company Neuronic. / ASF

Translated by Regina Anavy

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For About 230 Dollars a Month, Mexico Hires Cubans and Other Migrants To Fumigate Against Dengue Fever

The Chiapas government includes them in the “junk and vector removal” program.

The migrants were trained to fumigate in priority areas / Chiapas Ministry of Health

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 13 March 2025 — The state of Chiapas, in Mexico, hired 390 migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras and Haiti as fumigators to stop the spread of diseases that increased last year, such as dengue, malaria, Zika and chikungunya, all transmitted by mosquitoes. “The pay will help me support myself while I’m in Tapachula,” 26-year-old Venezuelan Jaiver Urdaneta told 14ymedio.

The government of the state of Chiapas added migrants to the “unloading and vectors” program, in charge of removing garbage and abandoned objects from the streets. “Migrants join the brigades specialized in vector control and zoonoses,” said a source from the Ministry of Health.

At the end of January, state health authorities reinforced surveillance on the border. According to official data, last year the cases of dengue increased by 34% and those of malaria by 84%, both transmitted by mosquitoes.

In the first two months of the year, 600 cases of malaria in migrants were found. “It is a risk because it can spread,” the Secretary of State Health, Omar Gómez Cruz, told local media. “Fortunately we controlled it and treated all the people, who were from Venezuela, Central America and Panama.”

Jaiver Urdaneta told this newspaper that he is guaranteed three months with a salary of just over 2,300 pesos per fortnight in the border state with Guatemala. The payment is less than the average of 3,350 that a worker receives, and in addition they do not have medical services or other benefits continue reading

stipulated in the Federal Labor Law such as the payment of utilities, savings fund, pantry vouchers and food.

At the end of January, state health authorities strengthened surveillance along the border. / Cacahoatán City Council

“A friend told me about the job; I didn’t have any money. Now I can pay for a room, buy food and Migration has stopped threatening me.” Urdaneta says that the officers have a list with the names and photos of those who make up the program.

Yaniel, a Cuban who is in the same group as Jaiver, says he has been in Tapachula for three months. “I am doing the paper work with the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar), and I have an appointment in May. I trust that they will give me refuge, because if it is not in Mexico, I will look in Guatemala, but I’m not returning to Cuba,” he states.

The 28-year-old from Havana explains that he was excluded in February from the group of migrants who were hired to sweep streets, collect garbage and paint public spaces, but the Comar told him that another project was going to be opened. The young man regrets that the remuneration for the salary is low, but at least “it is secure.”

For her part, the Secretary for the Development of the Southern Border, María Amalia Toriello Elorza, indicated that they have detected, without specifying nationality, doctors among the migrant groups. “We want to take advantage of their knowledge and give them the opportunity to contribute to the public health of Chiapas,” she said. “This will not only benefit the population but will also allow the practitioners to continue practicing their profession in a legal and dignified manner.”

Toriello Elorza assured that they are working on the requirements to be met so that migrant specialists can practice in the state under the corresponding legal framework. According to their profile, they will be assigned to the areas in which their knowledge can be used, she clarified.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Chaotic Hiring of Cuban Doctors by the Controversial University ‘For The Poor’ in Mexico

The University of Wellbeing asks Havana for more specialists, despite the academic failure of a previous experience

Students of the Benito Juárez García University for Wellbeing, Mexico / Prensa Libre

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas / Yaiza Santos, Mexico / Madrid, 11 February 2025 — The governor of the State of Mexico, Delfina Gómez, has requested doctors from Cuba to teach classes at the Texcoco headquarters of the Benito Juárez García University for Wellbeing, the controversial educational project established by the previous Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, for low-income students. The curriculum in medicine cannot begin in January due to a lack of teachers, a knowledgeable source who asks for anonymity reveals to 14ymedio.

Gómez made the request publicly last Saturday, taking advantage of a meeting with the Cuban ambassador to Mexico, Marcos Rodríguez Costa, which aimed to “strengthen cooperation in education and health.”

It is not the first time that Mexico has requested health workers from Cuba for the purpose of teaching, says the source. In August 2023, 100 professors from several Cuban educational centers were hired for that same university. Specialists in oncology, nephrology, neurology, cardiology, rheumatology, gastroenterology, otorhinolaryngology, angiology and vascular surgery arrived in the country and were distributed in 55 headquarters of the University for Wellbeing.

Of these, however, only 23 had medical specialties: 20 in Integral Medicine and Community Health, and three in Nursing and Obstetrics. continue reading

The project was led by Cuban doctors without having a space to teach classes

Alonso, a teacher at the University of Wellbeing in Mexico City, confirmed to this newspaper that a first group of Cubans had been part of the institution’s staff since 2023. “I don’t know exactly how many there were, but they were located in the state of Veracruz and informed us that they were specialists in the career of medicine.”

This newspaper confirmed that in the community of Coatzintla (Veracruz), the Cubans Romaira Irene Ramírez Santisteban and Mario López Bueno were part of the faculty of the university headquarters in that city.

The degree of medicine at Texcoco was included as part of the curriculum of the University of Wellbeing last year. The project was led by Cuban doctors without having a space to teach, so teachers and students were temporarily located in the Civil Engineering facilities.

The medical students were given a two-week preparatory course, but given the lack of space, the Cuban doctors demanded classrooms somewhere else.

Even more unusual, it was the National Water Commission (Conagua) of the State of Mexico – an entity that has nothing to do with Education – that provided medical students with a space in its facilities, in addition to providing them with transportation. However, “in July 2024 they were warned that they could no longer support them with transportation, so they had to move elsewhere,” says the anonymous source.

“The students were then offered online classes with interns who had received their degrees. Of course they refused, and the project was suspended until further notice.”

The students had to return to the Civil Engineering campus in Texcoco, where they took classes in an auditorium. In that same month, the Cuban doctors ended their contract, and no more staff were hired to take charge of the curriculum.

“No one took responsibility for this. So much irresponsibility is not possible. Students were invited to take online classes with career interns. Of course they refused, and the project was suspended until further notice,” the source says.

In the State of Mexico, specifically in the Lago de Texcoco Ecological Park, there is a plan for the construction of another headquarters of the University of Wellbeing, but without a start date.

The chaos and opacity of the University of Wellbeing does not only concern the hired Cubans but also the general tone of the project. Created by López Obrador by presidential decree on July 30, 2019, with the aim of “proving alternatives in free and quality higher education services to young people,” this university “for the poor” has received numerous criticisms.

One of them is the amount of money spent by the State for these centers compared to the brutal cuts in funds for other public institutions of accredited prestige, such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) and the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM).

According to research published in the Mexican press, it is not very well known how the billions of pesos allocated to the University of Wellbeing have been spent

According to research published in the Mexican press, it is not very well known how the billions of pesos allocated to the operation of the University of Wellbeing have been spent, or how many of the 203 promised centers were actually built.

According to the general director of the University herself, Raquel Sosa Elízaga, until 2022 the Mexican Government had allocated 4 billion pesos (almost 195 million dollars) for the installation, equipment and operation of those institutions, which in 2023 had a budget of 1,476 million pesos and a year later, 71 million more: 1,547 million pesos.

The project planned to train a total of 300,000 students, all scholarship holders, in six years, 96,000 of them in the first generation. However, at the end of 2024, only 57,000 students had enrolled. In five years, 6,372 students finished their studies, but only 1,918 of them received a degree.

In addition to some exaggerated figures for students and an invented number of teachers (more than 700), there are half-built facilities and vacant lots in addresses where several of those centers are supposed to be located. In the few locations that operate, says a recent report, “disappointment prevails for students and teachers due to the multiple deficiencies with which they have to operate.”

José Narro, former rector of UNAM, described the University of Wellbeing in November last year, directly, as “an educational fraud.” The academic also regretted that the current Government under President Claudia Sheinbaum “continues the strategy of monetary transfers as a social development policy that has only shown its effectiveness as a political instrument but doesn’t solve the problem of poverty.” The president, for her part, defended the model, saying “it was a different educational program.”*

*Translator’s note: The University of Wellbeing is not an accredited institution.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Rejected by the United States, a Cuban Doctor and an Activist Seek To Stay in Mexico

The Mexican government has turned the state of Tabasco into a third border for migrants, a lawyer says

Activist Jorge Cervantes García is in Villahermosa, Tabasco / Jorge Cervantes

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, February 7, 2025 — Cuban activist Jorge Cervantes García, one of the 2,539 migrants returned to Mexican territory in the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s government, tells 14ymedio that “Mexico and the United States have militarized their borders in an attempt to stop everything.” The opponent was forced by State Security to leave the Island in December, and now he is stranded with thousands of migrants in a country where he has nothing and his future is uncertain.

The member of the Cuba Primero movement and former militant of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) said that on December 23, he crossed the Rio Grande along with 15 other migrants and surrendered to the US authorities. The only thing the Border Patrol told them was that “the procedures were paralyzed.” They took photographs and fingerprints, recorded their data on a computer and, the next day, returned them to Mexico.

Cervantes García mentions that the Mexican government is sending deported migrants, including him, as far as possible from the border with the United States. Since last August, the Administration turned the state of Tabasco, in the extreme south of the country, into “the third border for foreigners,” says lawyer Arturo Manríquez. “The figures, updated to August, indicate that during the mandate of former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 36,000,000 dollars were disbursed for the transfer of people in an irregular situation on flights and buses,” he adds.

Venezuelan María Alejandra and her son Jhon Alexander were deported last week by the United States and returned to Mexico / Jorge Cervantes

The Cuban activist, who is in the Tabasco capital of Villahermosa, confirms that with these transfers, the city “has been crowded with people from all over the world without any guarantees or protection.”

In recent days, several flights have arrived with Cubans, desperate over their situation and the uncertainty about being returned to the Island. continue reading

“Migration doesn’t tell us anything; they simply put us out on the street and close the gate” of the hostel, claims Cervantes García.

The opponent, banished by the regime for “asking for freedom,” is looking for work to be able to send money to his family. His situation is similar to that of many other migrants from the continent with whom he shares the city and the anxiety.

María Alejandra and her son Jhon Alexander are Venezuelans, who were deported by the United States. Since last week she has been in Villahermosa without money or a place to stay. She survives on the street by what people give her and is afraid of being kidnapped.

On her journey, the Venezuelan suffered two confinements against her will. “The mafia kidnapped me in Juchitán (Oaxaca) and separated me from my son. I spent almost five days without hearing from him,” she says. Her kidnappers kept her tied up; she was released after her mother paid $1,200. In Reynosa (Tamaulipas) she was again a victim of organized crime. “I felt helpless and afraid that they would do something to me.”

However, María Alejandra does not want to return to the Venezuela that she abandoned in search of a better future, and she trusts that Mexico will grant her asylum.

Cuban doctor Niury had her CBP One appointment canceled after the arrival of Donald Trump to the US presidency / Facebook

For her part, Niury, a Cuban doctor, says that she wanted to go to the United States and reunite with her family, but with the arrival of Trump, the doors to that country were closed, and her CBP One appointment was canceled.

The medical graduate points out that she left Cuba because she was tired of “so many lies and the dictatorship.” Her goal was to “search for freedom,” and she does not plan to return. Trying to find an alternative, she went to the offices of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid in Tijuana to request refuge and hopes to stay in Mexico. “If I manage to work in my profession and everything goes well, I’ll stay here.”

President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government, at the beginning of February, offered the United States 10,000 Army soldiers and the National Guard to combat the passage of migrants and drugs, mainly fentanyl. In return, Trump suspended the 25% tariff on Mexican products for a month.

The Mexican president also confirmed the “voluntary” deportation by air of Hondurans. “Yesterday (Thursday) a flight left, and they are also being returned by land transport. If they want us to, we can accompany them so that they can return to their countries of origin,” she added.

That day, at the international port of San Ysidro, on the Mexican side, elements of the National Guard and the Criminal Investigation Agency checked every vehicle crossing the checkpoint. In addition, camps are being set up at strategic points along the border, in coordination with the municipal police and the state police, to detect the transfer of migrants, weapons and drugs in vehicles. The strategy also includes routes along the border.

This process, said the director of the Binational Center for Human Rights, Víctor Clark Alfaro, puts the integrity of migrants at risk. “National Guard agents are not trained in the field of migrants’ human rights and even less so in trying to stop them. That will complicate the situation and can create tensions between both groups.”

Clark Alfaro applauded the concern of the Sheinbaum Administration about the fentanyl problem. “Fentanyl is produced in Mexico and crosses to the United States. There is collusion with drug trafficking, which cannot be denied either.” However, the success of this operation will not be seen until the real shortage of this drug is reflected in the United States.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Activist Jorge Cervantes, Now a Forced Migrant, Is Stranded in Mexico

State Security gave the former Unpacu militant the choice between prison or exile

Cuban activist Jorge Cervantes García was banished by the Cuban regime on September 10 / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 10 January 2025– Cuban activist Jorge Cervantes García, member of the Cuba Primero movement and former militant of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, longs for the Island. From a border point in Mexico, where he has been since the end of last December, he confesses to 14ymedio that he would like to return to his country, but not to “go to a punishment cell simply for the fact of thinking differently and fighting for the freedom of my people.” He misses his children, his wife and his family.

Four months ago, State Security officials went to the punishment cell in the Aguadores prison in Santiago de Cuba, where he had spent six months for an alleged crime classified as “other acts against the security of the State,” to force him into exile, he says. “Cervantes, since what you do on the streets is unbearable, you are going to receive 15 years in prison at the prosecutor’s request,” they told him. Then they gave him the choice between three years in prison or leaving the country.

After consulting with members of his movement, he concluded that “the wisest thing was to accept exile, because very little can be done from a Cuban prison to continue the fight.” The activist was taken out of his cell and escorted to Havana. “They put me on a plane bound for Guyana” on September 10, he says.

His journey, with the United States as the final goal, began in Georgetown. So far, he has crossed 10 countries: Guyana, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, where he is stranded. Despite having an “amparo” [protection], the authorities prevented him from boarding a flight to the U.S. border. The opponent clarifies that he cannot consider himself “a political exile” because he has not yet found a place that will give him refuge and legalize his stay.

The activist was taken out of his cell and escorted to Havana. “I was put on a plane bound for Guyana” on September 10, he says]

Never, in 57 years of life, did Cervantes think he would face migration. He never imagined the long and tiring walks alongside immigrants from China, India, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Africa and Cuba, “people with political, economic and religious motives.” Nor did he imagine the “heartbreaking” stories he would hear in that search for a better future and freedom. continue reading

“Mothers traumatized because their girls or boys were raped in front of them, people who died, elderly people lost in the river currents. I have seen tears in the eyes of doctors and professionals who are part of immigrant caravans and experienced horrors they never imagined,” he says.

From his personal experience, Cervantes says that migration is a phenomenon that “has no solution in sight.” The reality is “that many people are afraid to say that the governments are closely linked to mafias, with criminal organizations engaged in trafficking migrants.”

For the banished opponent, the real mafias, “the most harmful,” are “the government soldiers protected by law who arrest migrants and exploit them, humiliate them, mistreat them and take everything from them to let them pass from one place to another. From country to country you have to pay one, two, three, four times to board a plane, to take a bus. They have all their scams well organized.”

One example is the well-known travel packages advertised online, which offer to “get you out and take you” to any country. “They paint a pretty picture for you to accept and pay. They encourage you to leave by promising a safe way,” but the reality is that they’re going to assault you. “You enter a spider web” where they abandon you, he explains.

For Jorge Cervantes, the real mafias, “the most harmful,” are “the government soldiers who arrest migrants and exploit them” / 14ymedio

Cervantes remembers that in Panama, “after you pass the town of Bajo Chiquito and cross the Darién jungle, there are people who receive you and give you a little bag of food.” The activist warns that while in one place “they help you, in another they hit you.”

According to the opponent, “there are soldiers who know that you are being assaulted and do nothing, because they live off that.” The migrant is treated as “a commodity,” he says.

In the same way, he regrets that “many people talk about how to solve the problem but they don’t really want to do it,” because it’s a business, which has also brought prosperity to some remote areas.

The Cuban activist says that in Necoclí, a Colombian municipality that was practically abandoned, “there are now more than 500 prosperous businesses” because it’s a mandatory stop for irregular migrants in their transit to the United States. Another “place in the middle of nowhere” is Bajo Chiquito,” which he calls a “lost pueblo” in the Darién jungle, where foreigners “bring life, development and well-being.”

Clothed in the Cuban flag, Cervantes trusts that Donald Trump’s government will maintain a firm stance against the Cuban regime, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The opponent, in any case, wants for Cuba what many people enjoy in free, democratic countries. “You can express yourself within being beat up or put in prison. Your children can grow up safe and sound, in schools that educate them, not indoctrinate them.” It hurts him to think of his family and fellow fighters in Cuba, who are “going hungry, with repression, harassment and death.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Hundreds of Cubans Crowd Into Tapachula for the CBP One Program, Wanting To Get to the US Before Trump Takes Over

At least 3,000 migrants, including several Cubans, went to the Migration offices in Tapachula (Chiapas) for CBP One* Program / Facebook / South Border News

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 26 November 2024 — Cuban Yunier Pérez Valdés is confident of being in the United States before Donald Trump assumes power on January 20 and, as he threatened, starts mass deportations. “I’m against the clock,” he tells 14ymedio. His sister María Elena and her brother-in-law arrived in Tijuana, the border with the United States, and after crossing the San Ysidro checkpoint they turned themselves in last Friday. But he confesses in anguish: “I don’t know what I’m going to do if I stay in Mexico.”

In his first term in the White House (2017-2021), Trump implemented restrictive measures such as the “Stay in Mexico” program, which forced asylum seekers to wait on Mexican territory while their cases were resolved. “If you don’t find a way before Trump, everything will overflow at the border,” estimates Pérez, who is in Tapachula, in the state of Chiapas. “Once again, all Cubans, Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans will look for a way to enter the country illegally.”

The young man, 23 years old and originally from Matanzas, had to sell everything he owned to be able to make the journey. “I have no money, I don’t have a house, I don’t have a family. I tell the agents that in Cuba we are starving and they laugh.”

A policewoman in Tapachula asked him if he was politically persecuted. “They don’t understand that Cubans leave because there are no improvements. There are months of blackouts, without medicines, without work. Where is the humanitarian aid they send for natural disasters? If you protest you are now an enemy and they beat you with sticks,” he laments. continue reading

Several migrants stay overnight in the Plaza de Tapachula while waiting for Migration procedures / EFE

This Monday, some 3,000 migrants arrived at the Migration offices in that same border city, comments Pérez, about 100 Cubans among them, but “the rule,” is to assist 1,000; of those, 700 are there for CBP One Program*. “The rest process documents for their regulation. There are two lines, although there were problems because some Haitians and Colombians wanted their papers immediately.”

The Cuban migrant stays overnight in the Bicentennial Park. There he met the Venezuelan José de Casa, who last October registered through the CBP One application, but the answer has not reached him. “The agents ask me not to despair, but it’s not easy, I’m here without money. The little I brought ended in days and I can’t get out of here (Tapachula),” says the Venezuelan.

They say that they tried to clean windshields on the streets, as other migrants have done, but “there is a mafia that controls them,” denounces the Venezuelan. “From what you earn you must share the money. ’You have to pay for the territory,’ they tell us.”

In that same place Pérez Valdés has met dozens of Cubans. “Many left with the caravan of 1,500 people last Wednesday. “They do it to avoid extortion and kidnappings by coyotes,” he says.

According to official data from the United States authorities, arrests in September for illegally crossing the border from Mexico were at their lowest point in the last four years.

Despite a 76% drop in the daily detention of migrants on the US border since December, according to the Mexican government, irregular migration through this country rose 193% year-on-year to a record of more than 172,000 people, according to the Migration Policy Unit.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Mexico Sends 23 Cuban Doctors to a Hospital Still Under Construction

Image of the back of the community hospital of Vícam Switch, in Sonora / Facebook/ Meganoticias Sur de Sonora

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 8 October 8, 2024 — A group of 23 Cuban doctors have been providing care since October 2 in a half-finished hospital in the municipality of Guaymas, state of Sonora (Mexico). At the same time as the consultations, the doctors have to endure the sounds of construction, and a pharmacy that provides an incomplete catalog of medications. A broken promise is behind the work, for which 26,014,316 dollars were invested, designed to serve 47,000 inhabitants of the Yaqui tribe, an indigenous community in the region.

The Government of Mexico, under Andrés Manuel López Obrador, granted a gift to Cuba with the hiring of doctors. At first it was said that they would be sent to the area of the Montaña de Guerrero, but in the eagerness to locate the Cuban specialists, against whom the national union and the opposition have raised their voices, they have been placed in hospitals in rural areas, and now even in clinics under construction, such as the one in the Yaqui area.

Several workers are observed in the background of the community hospital of Vícam Switch, in Sonora / Facebook / Meganoticias Sur de Sonora

“Governor Alfonso Durazo promised that the hospital would be finished in September. In addition, it would have an operating room and 28 beds,” a source told 14ymedio. Cuban doctors, along with nine Mexican doctors, offer consultations in internal medicine, ophthalmology, ear nose and throat diseases, pediatrics and gynecology, in addition to traditional medicine, according to Alejandro Burboa Luzanilla, director of the medical unit. continue reading

Consultations and other services are done while the hospital is being built, but in the media, the authorities show a different reality. “Everything has been done halfway. Smiling authorities appear in the videos, but everything is a facade,” adds the official.

The project includes two operating rooms, 30 beds, an emergency room, a shelter, pharmacy, X-rays and laboratory, but it does not advance at the pace that the authorities would like. “There are medications in the pharmacy, but some of the shelves are empty.” According to the hospital, the pharmacy has 98% of what is needed, including “antidiabetics, antidepressants and antibiotics.”

According to the official, the Yaquis must adapt to the Cubans, who “speak very fast and are little understood, although the Yaquis are grateful that they are in the region and are guided by the prescriptions they give them.” Official data indicate that in five days, doctors attended to more than 200 patients with diabetes, hypertension and digestive problems, even in the midst of the construction work.

Also, the Cuban specialists – the last ones arrived at the end of September – do not live near the hospital, as they should. “Apparently they still don’t have a house set up for them, so every day they are taken by official transport to cover the morning and afternoon shifts; there are no night shifts,” he said.

The authorities have assured that the work will be completed in December; in the meantime, the doctors will have to adapt and offer their services in the midst of the construction.

Regarding the per diem of Cuban doctors, at the beginning of October it was revealed that the Government of Mexico pays 5,188 dollars a month for salaries, transportation, food and lodging for each of the 3,101 specialists hired from Cuba to offer services in rural areas.

The governor of Sonora, Alfonso Durazo, in the community hospital of Vícam Switch / Facebook / Alfonso Durazo

This Tuesday, the arrival at the Imss-Bienestar unit of Tlaltenango, in the state of Zacatecas, of a geriatrician, gastroenterologist and family doctor was made official. Mayor Francisco Delgado Miramontes said that the specialists will begin to consult next week. The coordinator of the unit, Felipe Arreola Torres, said that with the arrival of the specialists, for the first time, it is guaranteed that there will be a doctor in each of the 484 health units.

Another group with 51 Cuban specialists was sent to the state of Hidalgo last Saturday, who were distributed to treat patients in 25 health units located in 16 municipalities of the state.

The arrival of these specialists is part of the agreement between the Government of Mexico and that of Cuba, through Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos S.A. de C.V., a Cuban company internationally accused of human trafficking. For the 610 Cuban doctors sent between July 2022 and 2023, it pocketed 23,227,156 euros.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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At Least a Thousand Cubans Are Among the Migrants Stranded in Tapachula Due to Delays in Procedures

Migrants of various nationalities in the Miguel Hidalgo Central Park in Tapachula, Chiapas / Facebook/Escenario Noticias

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 9 October 2024 — The delay in the response to appointments through the CBP One application keeps Cubans Alexander Mori and Bárbara García stranded since August in Tapachula, Chiapas. “Several Venezuelans received the answer in four days, but I, who carried out the procedure two months ago, have not had an answer,” Mori tells 14ymedio. The migrant defense lawyer for José Luis Pérez tells this newspaper that there are at least a thousand Cubans in the same situation.

This 27-year-old from Havana says that he has carried out the procedure up to three times; the last one was on Thursday, September 26. “We are desperate, people come and go, but we are still here, without moving.”

Pérez says that Mori, like other migrants, made a mistake: they have to wait for a response after making the appointment. “Every attempt starts from scratch; they must be patient,” he urges.

During his stay in Tapachula, Mori met Bárbara García in the Miguel Hidalgo Central Park. Originally from Matanzas and 29 years old, she was arrested in a raid by Immigration agents on September 2 and admitted to the Siglo XXI migratory station. The Matancera was traveling with her father and a nephew, but while she was detained they received a response to her CBP One appointment and moved her to the International Guardhouse in San Ysidro, Tijuana. continue reading

The parish priest Heyman Vázquez attributes the increase in the migratory flow to the “delay” in the procedures / EFE

“My family is already in Texas, they have managed to fulfill the dream, but I’m still here, waiting for an answer to the appointment,” he says. García spent 20 days locked up, “threatened with a deportation if she did not pay 1,000 dollars.” Her nephew was able to visit her after the National Institute of Migration (INM) granted him the multiple migratory form, a 20-day conditional stay permit that allowed him to travel to the border.

“One day the agents arrived, gave us a list and released us. I immediately completed the procedure and I am waiting for an answer,” he says.

The director of the Center for Human Dignity, Luis García Villagrán, told Diario del Sur that there are currently 45,000 migrants, most of them from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba, stranded in Tapachula. The common denominator of these groups is “political and religious persecution, xenophobia, violence, insecurity, poverty and lack of opportunities.”

The parish priest of the municipality of Suchiate, Heyman Vázquez, attributes the increase in the migratory flow to the “delay” in the procedures. The religious leader denounced the lack of attention by the INM, which caused people to be exposed to gang violence.

“The State ignored the situation of violence in the region, as well as its obligation to investigate and sanction human rights violations,” says the parish priest. The “crimes of public agents” and Migration are widespread, both for “omissions and in collusion with criminal groups.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Mexico López Obrador Administration hired 5,223 Cuban Doctors; Another 198 Arrived on Tuesday

A flight with 198 Cuban doctors arrived last Tuesday in Mexico

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, August 29, 2024 — The Government of Mexico accelerated the arrival of Cuban doctors for one month before the end of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s mandate. The goal is to have 5,223 doctors “as soon as possible,” an official confirmed to 14ymedio. The second stage provides for the “arrival of 4,023 health workers,” a figure higher than the 3,800 that the director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (Imss), Zoé Robledo, had announced last July.

“In October, the López Obrador Administration ends, and the plans are to have almost the total number of doctors. However, the incorporation into hospitals will be delayed because an introductory course is required, in addition to confirmation of the documents needed to practice,” the source stressed.

The doctors, who are specialists in several disciplines, are arriving in groups of between 198 and 200 at Felipe Ángeles International Airport (Aifa), where, according to the official, “there are scheduled flights.” Another 200 are expected this Friday or Saturday. continue reading

A group with 12 specialists from the Island was sent to the state of Sonora / Facebook/Imss Bienestar

Four groups have arrived in Mexico between August 2 and 27, making a total of 800 doctors. The first group of 200 doctors arrived on August 2, and two other groups, with 200 and 199, respectively, landed on August 8 and August 23 at the Aifa terminal.

The Cuban ambassador to Mexico, Marcos Rodríguez Costa, shared images last Tuesday, of 198 Cuban specialists who will join “hospitals and centers in 12 states, located in distant and highly marginalized communities.”

This newspaper received data on the arrival of two Cuban specialists at the Cupuan Health Unit, in the municipality of Zirándaro, a town with less than 1,000 inhabitants. Another two were sent to Yerba Santa, in the municipality of Acatepec, with 825 inhabitants. Both sites are located in Tierra Caliente, in the state of Guerrero, the site for which 600 physicians were hired in 2022, arguing a “deficit of specialists.”

The official said that another important group of specialists concluded their training this Wednesday at the hospital of the Guerrero community of Zumpango del Río, where an introductory course in rheumatology and child psychiatry was provided to treat bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in adolescents.

Twelve Cuban specialists arrived in the state of Sonora this Thursday to provide care in hospital and first-level medical units that are difficult to cover.

In the state of Guerrero there is another group of Cubans who have just completed an introductory course / Facebook/Jos Santy

The deployment of Cuban doctors has accelerated due to the proximity, on September 1, of the sixth government report of López Obrador. “The president will discuss the hiring of the Cubans, as well as the purchase of the Abdala vaccine against Covid as part of the agreement with the Island. He will also cover the continuity that Claudia Sheinbaum’s government will offer,” says the official.

The Cuban doctors are part of Imss-Bienestar, the free health organization created by the current government to replace the Popular Insurance, in force until last year. However, the official could not confirm the payment they will make to the company Neuronic Mexicana, a subsidiary of Neuronic S.A. Cuba, which since 2018 is a representative of the products and services of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry of the Island, under the presidency of the Cuban Tania Guerra.

However, it is known that Cuban specialists connected to Imss-Bienestar will receive salaries of 50,000 pesos ($2,732 per month), in addition to a bonus of 10,000 pesos ($545), for a total of $3,277. Of that amount, the total that will end up in the hands of the Island’s doctors and what will remain in the government’s coffers is unknown.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Mexico Receives Another 200 Cuban Doctors To Work in 19 States

The 200 Cuban specialists were received last Friday at Felipe Angeles International Airport

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 4 August 2024 — Last Friday, a contingent of 200 Cuban doctors crowded into the corridor of the migration area at Felipe Ángeles International Airport in the state of Mexico. The group, said Ambassador Marcos Rodríguez Costa, will be distributed in 19 states with the “noble work of saving lives.”

The diplomat did not offer more details. This group joins one that on July 20 arrived, with hardly any media coverage, at the same air terminal and was taken to a high-specialty hospital in Veracruz, where they are given courses for incorporation into the Imss-Bienestar program, which has been raised by the Government of Mexico as the free health agency implemented in 23 states of the country.

The arrival of these health contingents from the Island are part of the second group contracted by Mexico in March 2023, to have 1,200 doctors. In July of last year, the director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (Imss), confirmed that until that time there were 950 Cubans who had already been integrated into the health services. continue reading

A group of Cuban specialists was sent to the state of Baja California (Mexico) this Saturday / Facebook/Médicos Cubanos, Baja California Sur, Mexico

For these physicians, Mexico pledged to pay $1,308,922 per month to Neuronic Mexicana, which depends on Neuronic S.A. Cuba. Since 2018, this company has been the representative of the products and services of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries of the Island, under its president, Tania Guerra.

Mexico has been discreet about the distribution of the Cuban specialists and the functions they perform in the hospitals where they have been sent. However, a source confirmed to 14ymedio that the doctors began to be rotated this year through different parts of the territory. “The rotation is designated by the people in charge of the Cuban delegation with the consent of Imss-Bienestar. We don’t know the reason, but it could be that they detect too much friendliness with the inhabitants, and they don’t like that at all. They are afraid that they will run away [decide to stay in Mexico],” said the official.

Two Cuban internists, two pediatricians and a radiologist were sent to the rural hospital of the Veracruz municipality of Las Chopas last February, and a week ago they were informed that they would be sent to another clinic, which generated uncertainty among the local authorities. Mayor Marisela Hernández García reported on July 31 that together with the director of the hospital, Dr. Pedro Coronel Pérez, steps were taken to cover those spaces with “Cuban or foreign doctors so that service is not interrupted.” According to official figures, 25 doctors from the Island work in the state of Veracruz.

A doctor in Colima explains the rotation of Cuban doctors and the termination of contracts / Image capture / Entérate Ixtlahuacán

In the state of Colima, where the arrival of 86 specialists was reported, patients demonstrated on July 31 over the absence of doctors in the General Hospital of Ixtlahuacán. One patient complained about the lack of medical attention for not having a doctor. “They told me that I have to wait until August for an appointment, so where are the Cuban doctors?”

The woman was told that the hospital was not informed of the length of stay of the Island’s doctors. “It’s a federal provision,” they stressed. “These doctors have contracts, but when they leave, they don’t all come back; that was the case of a psychiatrist who did not return to the state for health reasons and two others who were relocated to other health centers.”

They informed her that in September they are terminating the contracts of pediatricians, a psychologist, surgeons and an internist. “Their last months will be spent in other states.”

The rotation of doctors takes a few days after the director of Imss, Zoé Robledo, confirms the hiring of another 3,800 Cubans. With the arrival of additional health workers – which will bring the total to 5,000 – they intend to complete the staff of specialists in those areas where there are facilities that “have an operating room, but don’t perform surgeries” or that have outpatient consultation areas, “but no doctors.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Migrants Are Anxiously Waiting in Chiapas To Request Their CBP One Appointments

Migrants line up outside the offices of the Mexican Refugee Assistance Commission in Tapachula, waiting to resolve their immigration situation / EFE

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, 8 August 2024 — Last Friday, in the company of his sister and uncle, the Cuban Yeison Cedeño López went to the offices of the Mexican Refugee Assistance Commission (COMAR) of Tapachulas, in the state of Chiapas, to apply for asylum from the Mexican Government. The officials, however, warned him that they would only let him do so it if his intention was to “stay in Mexico,” since the application to apply for asylum to the United States from that state – recently announced by the authorities – is not yet available.

Cedeño and his family have been in the state bordering Guatemala for almost three months, and during that time they have made several requests to allow them to stay in Mexican territory and prevent them from being deported, but dealing with the institutions has not been easy. To begin with, Cedeño had to protect himself from being arrested and deported. Each amparo (protection order) cost 1,350 Mexican pesos (71 dollars), and the money is due on August 17.

“They had us waiting for three hours and when we entered we filled out a few sheets. They gave us a copy and asked us to return in three months,” Cedeño tells 14ymedio.

Cedeño’s goal is to reach the United States. “I have a sister in Utah. She is helping us, and with the work we’re doing here and her help, we have continue reading

enough to eat and can cover accommodation,” he says. He recently learned that the U.S. Government’s CBP One application will soon be available in Chiapas and Tabasco.

Between June and July, more than 1,000 Cubans filled out asylum applications in Mexico / EFE

As he explains, despite the fact that he will apply for refuge in the United States as soon as the application is approved, he decided to do so also in Mexico in case he has to “redo the CBP One. We’re not going back to Cuba; anywhere else is better,” he says. At the door of the Refugee Assistance Commission there is a sign indicating that from August 12, the delivery of appointments will begin again, explains Cedeño.

An official confirmed to this newspaper that these appointments are the ones corresponding to the month of May, so those who submitted their applications in June and July “will have to continue with their weekly signature – the process requires that they go to the office every week to sign the documents – and continue waiting for their turn.”

The official also confirmed that in recent weeks there has been an increase in the transit of migrants through the state, especially of small groups of migrants, which is called “ant migration.”

Likewise, the state authorities have identified several groups that began the crossing in San Pedro Sula in the direction of the municipality of Ciudad Hidalgo, where they met. The group was concentrated in the municipality of Suchiate. “The departure of the caravan is scheduled for August 11 or 12, while other groups of between 15 and 20 people who are arriving from San Pedro Sula are organized and waiting,” the official said.

Cubans are the second largest group of migrants who arrive at the COMAR, with 19,803 recorded, only behind Honduras. Cuba is followed by Haiti, 4,022 applications; El Salvador, with 3,842 and Guatemala, with 2,671. Unlike other years, only 2,549 Venezuelans have passed through this institution.

According to the figures offered by the Government of Mexico, so far this year about 9,914 Cubans have gone to one of the eight offices that the agency has in Baja California, Palenque, Tapachula, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Saltillo, Tabasco and Veracruz, because in Mexico City the procedures have been paused by a change of headquarters. Just between June and July, more than 1,000 applicants from the Island were counted.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Migrants Will Be Able To Get Their US ‘CBP One’ Appointment in Two More Mexican States

Several groups of Cuban, Venezuelan and Colombian migrants wait for a response to their CBP One applications in Tijuana, Mexico / EFE

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, August 5, 2024 — The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed last Saturday that “soon” migrants will be able to schedule appointments through the CBP One application from the states of Tabasco and Chiapas, in Mexico, to obtain one of the 1,450 appointments available daily, according to the AP news agency. The measure “will reduce the risks of people entering through the southern border of Mexico,” the statement clarifies. Last Friday, Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena said that, as part of the agreements with the United States, “from now on, CBP One appointments can be obtained in Chiapas and Tabasco,” along with the rest of the states where they are already available. She also mentioned the reduction in the number of migrants crossing Mexico, from 12,498 arrests in December 2023 to 1,941 in August of this year.

Bárcena specified that these numbers correspond to “migrants who try to enter the United States without an appointment and are processed .”

Last May, the United States processed more than 44,500 people through the CBP One application / Image Capture / Telemundo 51

Aledmys Morell, a 27-year-old Cuban who is in Tijuana waiting for a response after requesting an appointment, tells 14ymedio about the difficulties of staying in Mexico while waiting for the U.S. authorities to respond. “Life is hell here. This place is full of gangs, robberies and extortion, but my cousin tells me to wait, not to cross illegally because I’ll be deported and will no longer be able to enter the United States.”

Morell, from Santiago de Cuba, explains that he filled out the application last June. He did it from Tijuana because he could not complete the procedure when he was in Mexico City. “You have to keep trying and then continue reading

wait.” The CBP One application designates appointments every day at 9:00 am in Tijuana, Mexicali and Nogales; at 10:00 in Ciudad Juárez and Mexico City; and at 11:00 a.m. in Piedras Negras, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros.

Jaiver Rodríguez, a Venezuelan who shares a room with Morell, points out that he has been waiting for the appointment for four months “and it hasn’t arrived.” Some of his compatriots got it in one month, but “I don’t know what their problem is with me.” Two of his relatives caught up with him in Tijuana because they were not allowed to leave Tapachula (Chiapas).

The Cuban photographer Ginle Cubillas Arriola, who is in the United States, tells this newspaper that one of the mistakes that migrants make is that, in their desperation over the delay of a response, they end up submitting more than one application, which “lengthens the wait,” and the request, sometimes, is rejected. “I know of people who asked for a group appointment, mistakenly thinking that this was the best way.”

In Mexico City, groups of Haitians and Venezuelans predominate / EFE

Rodríguez says that since last July, the CBP One application “requests, in addition to the migrant’s data, a selfie and a geolocation tag.” The Venezuelan hopes that the request for appointments through the application will not be affected by these requirements or by the recent temporary suspension of travel permits for those who have received the humanitarian parole – because of alleged “significant levels of fraud.”

For his part, Morell managed to get a job in an inn (restaurant) washing dishes in exchange for food and 480 pesos (24.88 dollars) per week, which allows him to share a room with Venezuelans and Colombians. ” At least I’m eating. There are plenty of migrants living on the street,” laments the Santiaguero.

Since its launch in January 2023 and up to last June, the CBP One application has been used by more than 687,000 people who have managed to successfully schedule their appointments to present themselves at one of the eight points of entry into the United States.

According to official data, the United States processed more than 44,500 people last May through these appointments, using the information on the application.

The border entry points in Tijuana and Matamoros recorded 400 appointments per day, according to an official report by the Strauss Center of the University of Austin, Texas. In Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo and Piedras Negras they reported more than 200 appointments a day.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Seven Cuban Doctors Will Return to the Island After the End of Their Contract in Mexico

The specialists arrived in the country in 2022, after being originally hired for one year, although their stay was extended for two

An image of the Cuban doctors who arrived in 2022 in the state of Campeche (Mexico) / Heraldo Carmelita

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, July 28, 2024 –In October, seven Cuban doctors will stop work in hospitals located in the Mexican state of Campeche. According to Eva Baeza Fuentes, president of the board of trustees of the María del Socorro Quiroga Aguilar general hospital, the doctors were informed of their return to the Island, and there is “uncertainty” among them because they do not know if they will return to Mexico.

Baeza Fuentes confirmed to the newspaper Por Esto! that two gynecology specialists, an internist, a surgeon and an intensive care specialist will leave the hospital where she works. An anonymous source specified that “the Cubans arrived in October 2022 with a one-year contract, which included a six-month period of leave; however, their stay was extended for another year, which ends in October 2024.” This does not rule out that it is only a change of headquarters.

Among the Cuban specialists who arrived at the María del Socorro Quiroga Aguilar general hospital in 2022 are Misleidy Bárbara Labrada Cedeño, Yisell Muñiz Cárdenas, Liliana Castro Goulet, Elizabet Valdés Hernández and Manuel de Jesús Molina Sánchez. continue reading

The governor of the state of Campeche, Layda Sansores, when receiving Cuban specialists in 2022 / Layda Sansores

These health workers are part of the group of the first 600 hired by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. For each of these professionals, the Island received, according to the agreement, $2,042 per specialist and $1,722 per general practitioner. The money was managed by the Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos, S.A. In the agreement with Mexico it was specified that this first stage was for one year, “with the possibility of extending the agreement.”

Of that money, Cuban doctors receive only “a stipend for their needs,” meaning that their “salary stays in Cuba,” denounced a specialist in February 2023. Of the amount paid by the López Obrador Administration that should be allocated for the doctors’ salaries , the Government of the Island receives the most. Organizations such as Prisoners Defenders have questioned the Government of Mexico for hiring Cuban professionals in “conditions of slavery.”

Baeza Fuentes said that in addition to the specialists at the Socorro Quiroga Aguilar hospital, a Cuban neurosurgeon who is working at the Escárcega Hospital and a surgeon established in Ciudad del Carmén will also leave.

According to Governor Layda Sansores, 51 Cuban specialists arrived in the state of Campeche. A group of 109 were sent to Nayarit and another 52 to Guerrero. The rest are in Baja California Sur (51), Chiapas (12), Colima (86), Michoacán (71), Hidalgo (39), Oaxaca (68), Quintana Roo (31), Sonora (60), Tamaulipas (15), Tlaxcala (105), Veracruz (25), Yucatán (3) and Zacatecas (28).

On July 16, the Government of Mexico announced the hiring of another 2,700 doctors from the Island. They will join the 950 who are now in the country

On July 16, the Government of Mexico announced the hiring of another 2,700 doctors from the Island. They will join the 950 that are now in Mexican territory, distributed in 23 states.

The Cuban doctors are part of Imss-Bienestar, the free health organization created in 2022 by the Government of the self-styled Fourth Transformation, headed by López Obrador, replacing the Seguro Popular, in power until that time.

A source confirmed to 14ymedio last Friday that a new group of health workers arrived in Mexico and were transferred to the state of Veracruz. These doctors are part of the 1,200 that were contracted last May.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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