Ángel Salinas – Page 3 – Translating Cuba

The Mexican Government Will Pay $2,000 a Month for Cuban Doctors

A delegation of Cuban doctors with health authorities in the Mexican state of Nayarit. (Government of Nayarit)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Havana, 27 July 2022 — The 500 Cuban doctors who were hired by the Government of Mexico to provide services in marginal areas of the country will receive a salary similar to that of Mexican health workers. “They will receive between 41,784 ($2,042) and 35,237 pesos ($1,722) per month,” an employee of the Institute of Health for Welfare (Insabi) told 14ymedio.

The source specified that, because doctors who are in the state of Nayarit have specialties in anesthesiology, general surgery, gynecology and obstetrics, internal medicine and pediatrics, they must receive $2,042 per month. Although “it’s not established whether the money will be received by them or will go through the Government of Cuba,” the official said.

“Housing and food will be covered by the municipal authorities [of the cities] where each hospital is located,” the source added, and also explained that “every 180 days the immigration permit will be renewed.”

The call issued by the Mexican Social Security Institute and Insabi indicates that the contract for doctors is temporary and will last for four months, and that the doctors will be entitled to benefits and training. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Monday that Cuban health workers “will be protected” at work. continue reading

López Obrador said that after Nayarit, the next states will be Tlaxcala and Colima, plus the Sierra de Guerrero, a region that was initially pointed out by the president as the one with the greatest health need and to which the 500 doctors from the island would be sent.

On Wednesday, the health authorities of Nayarit confirmed to 14ymedio that 47 Cuban doctors were taken to the hospitals that are located in the rural towns of Las Varas, in the municipality of Compostela, Puente de Camotlán (La Yesca), Jesús María (Del Nayar), San Francisco and Tondoroque (Bahía de Banderas), and to the municipal capitals of Santiago Ixcuintla, Rosamorada and Ixtlán del Río. Seven doctors were incorporated into the staff of the central hospital of Tepic.

The Cuban medical missions that provided their service during the COVID-19 pandemic were criticized for the lack of preparation of their health workers and the high costs they represented for Mexico.

A report revealed that doctors from the island limited themselves to “making beds, taking vital signs, conducting surveys and passing sponges to patients to bathe,” while the Cuban authorities proclaimed that mortality rates had decreased during their stay in Mexico.

In March 2021 it was announced that the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum, head of Government of Mexico City, spent a total of 150,759,867 pesos ($6,986,091) on the hiring of 585 Cuban doctors who were working in the capital from April 24 to July 24, 2020, once 14,884,785 pesos ($689,749) were added for the accommodation and feeding of the doctors. For the other brigades that have arrived in the country, the amounts disbursed to the Cuban Government are not known.

On the same subject, the coordinator in the Mexican Senate of the opposition National Action Party, Julen Rementería, accused the Governments of Mexico and Cuba of orchestrating a fraud by paying,12,692,940 dollars for the hiring of 585 untitled health workers from the island.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Coyotes Kept Five Cubans Hidden in a Feed Store in Central Mexico

Angélica María Rodríguez Varela and Ismael Meléndez Castro are held incommunicado at the Las Agujas migration center. (Collage)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 25 July 2022 — A warehouse intended to store feed was used by coyotes as a hiding place for migrants. In the building located on an embankment far from the town of San Miguel de la Victoria, in the State of Mexico, 225 undocumented people were found last Saturday, five Cubans among them.

Angélica María Rodríguez Varela, Isael Meléndez Castro and Junier Blanco Hernández, all of Cuban nationality, were transferred to the Las Agujas migration center, in Mexico City. Migration agents told them that they would be deported.

Rodríguez and Meléndez, originally from Pinar del Río, and Blanco, from Havana, sent their testimonies to our editorial staff. The 26-year-old girl with Passport K523299 said she was afraid that she will be repatriated to the island where she has suffered threats for demonstrating against the regime.

Meléndez, who studies at the University of Computer Sciences, told us that he was forced to leave Cuba after the harassment he suffered for participating in the demonstrations of July 11, 2021. “They accused me with false testimony and wanted to put me in prison,” he told 14ymedio.

Blanco asks to be allowed to continue on their way to the United States, where “we can ask for asylum.” The habanero stressed that they have not committed any crime and that their only fault was not to wait any longer in southern Mexico to complete the application process for a free transit laissez-passer.

Minutes after they were arrested by members of the National Guard and Migration, the Cubans had their cell phones confiscated and are now being held incommunicado at the Las Agujas station. continue reading

The case reached the ears of migrant defense attorney José Luis Pérez, who processed an amparo* so that they can be released and avoid any attempt at extortion by Migration agents, which happens often with undocumented migrants, mainly Cubans.

The detention of Cubans in the Migration Center “has become a means of raising money for the coffers of officials,” stressed the lawyer, who is based in the border state of Chiapas.

A statement from the National Migration Institute indicated that the 225 undocumented migrants were overcrowded and waiting to be transferred by the coyotes to the U.S. border. “People were rescued from a place where there was no light, and several children were found among blankets and backpacks without any hygiene measures,” an agent told 14ymedio.

Among the migrants detained are 194 from Guatemala, 14 from Honduras, nine from Nicaragua and three from El Salvador. The Guatemalans and Salvadorans will be returned to the south of the country.

Since October 2018, and despite the tightening of surveillance on the southern border of Mexico, thousands of migrants from Central and South America, but also from Cuba, Haiti and various African and Asian countries have entered Mexican territory with the aim of reaching the United States.

Coyotes look for routes for foreigners and sometimes park them in the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Puebla and the State of Mexico as an intermediate stop on their journey to the United States.

The region is experiencing a record migratory flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection Office has intercepted more than 1.6 million people so far in fiscal year 2022, which began last October.

In addition, Mexico received a record of more than 58,000 applications for asylum in the first half of 2022, an annual increase of almost 15%, according to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance.

*Translator’s note: An ’amparo’ is a request for protection

Translated by Regina Anavy

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After Five Months in Tapachula, Mexico for a Safe-Conduct, a Cuban from Cienfuegos Despairs

According to Comar figures, in June 1,093 Cubans applied for asylum. (EFE)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 5 July 2022 — José Luis has been in the city of Tapachula, Mexico, in the border state of Chiapas with Guatemala, for almost five months. On February 11, he went his appointment at the delegation of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) to request refugee status. “They gave me an appointment for April 16 and it’s already July and they haven’t given me anything,” this Cuban from Cienfuegos told 14ymedio.

The term to announce the result of the request should be 55 business days. “There are 45 business days to make a decision, plus 10 days to inform you of the result.” But in the case of José Luis, it was extended another 45 days, due to the increase in requests.

A source from the commission admits that they have been overwhelmed by the number of migrants. “In 16 days, from June 2 to 18, 3,350 people requested appointments to be seen by Comar. More than three quarters are single adults, most of them men.” At the end of that month, 1,093 Cubans seeking asylum were counted.

According to Comar’s figures, 58,642 people applied for refuge in Mexico during the first half of 2022, which means an increase of almost 15% compared to the same period in 2021. Of these, 10,791 are from the Island.

The official warned that they do not have an exact figure for the total number of migrants. “There are groups on the move, others that stay, others that decide to start the refugee process in Tapachula, for example, but, because of the time it takes, they abandon it and start it somewhere else. Most use this procedure to avoid being detained and deported and take the opportunity to advance towards the border with the United States.”

The monthly report indicates that Hondurans have submitted 13,750 refugee applications, Haitians (8,230), Venezuelans (7,196), Nicaraguans (4,616), Salvadorans (3,373), Guatemalans (2,176), Brazilians (1,411), Colombians (1,168 ) and Senegalese (985).

During his time in Tapachula, José Luis has come to feel desperate due to the lack of money and the harassment of the Immigration agents who carry out tours of the ‘kennels’ (vans). A hostel owner offered to let him help with the cleaning in exchange for “food and a place to spend the night.” continue reading

José Luis entered Mexico on February 11 through Ciudad Hidalgo (Chiapas), in a group that has been advancing according to its chances. On the Island, he left behind his wife and a three-year-old girl. “I would have wanted to bring them with me, but the money was lacking. A cousin who is in Texas financed me with $5,000 to leave. I’m not lying to you, for a Cuban that’s a lot.”

In all of 2021, Mexico received a record of more than 130,000 asylum applications, according to Comar.

The region is experiencing a migratory flow to the United States, where the Customs and Border Protection Office detected more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants on the border with Mexico in fiscal year 2021, which ended on September 30.

Mexico deported more than 114,000 foreigners in 2021, according to data from the Migration Policy Unit, figures not seen in almost 15 years.

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The Next Demonstration in Cuba: ‘I Don’t Think it Will be Peaceful or Civic,’ Says Alexander Pupo

Cuban doctors Alexander Jesús Figueredo Izaguirre and Alexander Pupo Casas hope to arrive in the US this month. (Facebook/Dr. Alexander Raúl)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 4 July 2022 — A few days before the first anniversary of the July 11 (11J) protests, doctor Alexander Pupo Casas, who suffered from harassment and lost his job due to his outspoken stance against the Cuban regime, tells 14ymedio: “As I see it, there won’t be another one because that 11J, 12J and 13J* the people came out civilly and peacefully and received repression, beatings and jail for it.”

The doctor, originally from Holguín, does not believe that he next demonstration will be “neither peaceful nor civic… There will be deaths and injuries on both sides, it will be a shame.”

Pupo, who shares with his colleague Alexander Jesús Figueredo Izaguirre the journey to reach the United States, uploaded to his Facebook wall a video recorded inside the trunk of a vehicle where he is crowded together with Haitian, Bangladeshi, African, Venezuelan migrants, Chinese and Russians.

“Look where we had to travel. Gentlemen, this is incredible, but nothing, here we are, in the trunk of a bus,” he is heard saying while panning the camera to show more people. “And there were those who said that we were financed, that we were well paid by the CIA.” continue reading

The doctor tells 14ymedio that they have had “a few days of calamities but right now we are safe.” Pupo reserved his location for a security issue “since the State Security Directorate (DSE) has tried to find our location, God knows with what intention.”

Pupo and Figueredo have had to experience, like thousands of Cubans who leave the Island, the most difficult emigration: without visas, without the support of diplomats, practically without money. “Our entire journey has been like illegals. We have been detained by the police, they have taken money from us and left us dumped in the middle of nowhere. We have had bad times.”

“They crossed the Darién jungle, they faced the Panamanian guard, we were sent to a UN ‘concentration camp’ in Panama, we have been denied medical assistance when we have needed it. In short, we had to face the dark side of emigration alone.”

In May, Figueredo said that on this journey “a part of him died in the Darién jungle seeing lost children, drowned and dead people and without being able to do anything, just watch and continue.”

The doctor points out that in the group in which they were traveling “unfortunately we had seven or eight deaths.” To enter that area that extends along the border between Panama and Colombia, not only “you have to be physically and mentally prepared, but luck also plays a crucial role in getting out of there. No one gets out unscathed.”

According to official figures from the National Migration Service (SNM) of Panama, until last March: a total of 13,425 irregular migrants crossed the Darién, including 4,257 from Venezuela, 1,589 from Haiti, 1,164 from Senegal and 1,065 from Cuba.

Pupo and Figueredo hope to reach the United States in a month and announced that they will notify the press when they are “at the border.”

*Translator’s note: The protests began on July 11^th and continued over the following days.

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At Age 82, Cuban Martin Guzman Fernandez Leaves the Island and Arrives in the United States

Martín Guzmán Fernández made a 78-day journey to reach the United States. (Ernesto Guzmán)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 17 May 2022 — Leave Cuba? The grandchildren and children had already done it years before. Martín Guzmán Fernández did not have a hard time deciding. On Saturday, after 78 days of travel, he arrived in the United States, “he crossed through Arizona and this Sunday la migra picked him up” along with three other Cubans who accompanied him, Ernesto, the son of this man from Havana, tells 14ymedio.

He was released from the migrant detention center on Monday. “He was there less than 24 hours and they treated him very well,” confirms his son, on the way to the place to pick him up and reunite him with the rest of the family.

“My father is part of one of the lost generations, from when the Revolution triumphed. Deceived like many,” says Ernesto by telephone from Panama, where he is currently visiting his sister and nephew.

At 82 years old, Guzmán “had to continue working in the Ministry of Construction because the retirement pay was not enough for him,” says Ernesto. “My father is diabetic and he has problems with a vein. He had a heart attack.”

Leaning on his cane, this octogenarian had to “line up at the pharmacy from two in the morning,” all to get told, when he arrived, that “there were no medicines.” He walked miles to buy food, “because in order to eat he had to have currency they he didn’t get paid in.” continue reading

Guzmán was afraid, but not of leaving the island, “he was afraid of not seeing us again,” says Ernesto. The way out was given on February 26, like most Cubans, by air through Managua (Nicaragua). The marked route indicated Tegucigalpa, in Honduras, as the second point, and from there to Guatemala to later travel to Tapachula, Chiapas.

There was some “desperation” in Tapachula, “when I had been waiting for a humanitarian visa for 25 days,” says Guzmán’s son. Eight days later they were able to leave and undertook a 3,500 kilometer journey by bus to the border with Arizona.

Martín Guzmán Fernández, this Tuesday, after being released by the immigration authorities. (Courtesy)

According to the latest preliminary figures from the Customs and Border Protection Office to which The Washington Post had access, almost 35,000 Cubans were detained on the southern border of the United States in April alone. The number was much higher than the 16,550 that were counted in February and higher than the 32,141 in March.

Ernesto left Cuba five years ago and remembers that “the emigration of the family began in 2012. The first were my two children, then my wife and I.” Before arriving in the United States, he was an administrator at Esedip, dependent on the Ministry of Construction, on the island. He set up a vehicle repair shop in Panama. “I would buy wrecked cars cleared by insurance, fix them up, paint them up and sell them.”

His training as an engineer earned him a chance to join the construction team of Line 2 of the Panama Metro. In addition, he set up a hostel to help Cubans passing through that country.

In recent days, several groups of more than 100 Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Colombians, Hondurans and Guatemalans have crossed the Rio Grande to reach Eagles Pass in the United States.

Through the borders of Tijuana and Reynosa, Cuban mothers are being allowed to stay with their children, but the men are being returned to Mexico. “They don’t tell you anything, they just turn you back and tell you to wait,” says Roberto, a Cuban who has been in the Senda de Vida shelter in the border state of Tamaulipas for 12 days.

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Cubans Must Pay $100 to Avoid Detention in the Mexicali Airport Terminal

Immigration agents at the International Airport of Mexicali are seen extorting Cubans. (INM)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 22 April 2022 — Whether or not you live there or have a tourist visa, in the International Airport of Mexicali “Cubans pay or are detained,” Deborah Rodríguez told 14ymedio. This woman, originally from Old Havana and now living in Mexico City, made three trips this year to the capital of Baja California, on the border with the U.S. “On two of them I had to give the agent 500 pesos [around $25] to let me continue.”

She worked as an assistant in an audiovisual production company, and they singled her out from the others in transit. “It was in February. They didn’t separate me from the group but put me against a wall like a criminal. The agents denigrate you without anyone doing anything.”

The terminal area has the capacity to perform 18 operations per hour and counts on charter routes for U.S. citizens from Los Angeles and San Francisco and Canadians from Vancouver. The airport is located 20 kilometers [13 miles] from Mexicali and has been converted into a route for Cubans on their transit to the U.S.

Norma Bustamamte Martínez, the Municipal President of Mexicali, confirms that “the arrival of 70 Cubans” was registered on April 12. The officer says that the denunciations of migrants about extortion are “rumors.” Alberto Gómez, from the National Institute of Migration (INM), denied these allegations. continue reading

But Rodríguez tells a different story. She reports that when you get off the plane, there are two checkpoints before you get to the exit. “The first is the INM where they review your documents. This is where you slip some money among your papers or you can’t leave. The second is the National Guard Army, where they review your papers and give you a pass to the commercial area and the exit to the station.

In spite of denials by the authorities, inside the airport are the immigration agents who control the extortions. The Cuban boxer, Michel Sarita, arrived in the terminal at the end of March with official documentation to remain in Mexico, according to Luis Felipe, who knows him. Before they took away his cellphone, the athlete said, “They put us on a bus, here in Immigration, and I don’t know where they’re taking us.”

A Venezuelan woman and her brother each paid 500 pesos to the agents. They told Luis Felipe that they had been arbitrarily detained and weren’t told where they were being taken. “Not everyone is able to pay.”

Javier is another native of the Island who was a victim of blackmail on the part of the Immigration authorities. You have to pay a fee, “everyone knows that.” Even though you have residence in Mexico or a tourist visa, it’s an “obligation” when you land in this airport to “put $100 in your passport when the agents approach you.”

This Cuban from the province of Granma was a permanent resident in Ecuador, and after one month he decided to emigrate to the U.S. to try his luck. He arrived in Mexico with a tourist visa which gave him the right to travel anywhere in the country. In Mexicali he had to pay $100 without any argument in order to avoid arrest.

Another two Cubans with permanent residence in Mexico also confirmed to 14ymedio that they suffered extortion. “We know why you come here”, the officials warned them. “Be honest.” They continued like this until the Cubans gave in and paid the money. In exchange the officials returned their papers and let them leave the terminal.

Another source confirmed to this newspaper that one person with a false visa paid 300 dollars to Immigration in this airport to avoid arrest.

The Department of Customs and Border Protection registered the arrival of 80,000 Cubans to the U.S. between October 1, 2021 and March of 2022. And in Mexico, Immigration reported the detention of 15,907 Cubans on April 16.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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For Immigration Officials in Mexico, Detaining Cubans is ‘The Goose That Lays The Golden Eggs’

This Tuesday, 17 Cubans were arrested at the main bus terminal in Puebla. (INM)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 19 April 2022 — The detention of Cubans in the Acayucan Migration Center, in the state of Veracruz (Mexico), has become a way of collecting money for the officials’ coffers, lawyer José Luis Pérez Jiménez reveals to 14ymedio.

Due to the fact that the Migration Law does not establish a defined amount as bail to release foreigners from migratory centers, the Legal Department “interprets article 102, subsection A” in its favor and determines, as it deems, the amount of money it will demand to let people out.

This legislative loophole, says the migrant defender, “allowed the Legal Department of downtown Acayucan, under the direction of Ulises Sánchez Molina, to set a bond of 10,000 Mexican pesos for the release of each of the eight Cubans” that he defended and managed to get released last week.

Since most of them “do not have financial solvency,” only the amounts corresponding to Lázaro Manuel Álvarez Cruz, Orlando Rivero González and Eddy Gonzlez Gonzlez were deposited in a credit society account created by the Mexico government.

These migrants were arrested on March 24 at kilometer 19 of the highway that goes from Villahermosa to La Choapas, in Veracruz. And along with them were Carla Elisa Vásquez Corrida, Damicela Pérez Concepción, Danyela Muñoz Pérez, Adrián Pérez Dominico, Nicdael Ángel Borges Concepción. All, says the lawyer, “are dissidents and participated in the July 11 demonstration in San Antonio de los Baños.”

Around 500 migrants are currently detained in the Acayucan immigration center, 97 of them are Cuban and some have a trade to be able to transit through the country. The high number of arrests is caused by irregularities and the collection of fees. Every day thousands of foreigners are detained and confined in state stations. continue reading

“They do it because the Migration agents have to deliver a fee to the head of the representative office and the latter to the national commissioner,” denounces the defender who proposed to the Mexican Congress to add to article 102 of the Migration Law an amount of bail and that the money that enters the National Migration Institute (INM) for this concept be controlled to avoid “petty cash.”

“There is the goose that lays the golden eggs, ” says Pérez. “The tip for migrants and lawyers is that when they have a detained client and they don’t know how much the bail is, they can deposit the equivalent of one day’s wages in the Banco de Bienestar, which is 172 pesos and 80 cents, and show it before Migration, with which they comply with the tabulator marked in article 21 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States.”

The Acayucan immigration station “is a prison where human rights do not exist,” says Wilmer Mantos, a 27-year-old Cuban who was released after 37 days. “There you are without a cell phone, without papers, you eat out of hunger, but the food is spoiled and there is almost no water and they don’t even provide you with medical assistance.”
Zoileny Soto Almenteros, a musician from Caibarién, in central Cuba, spent 50 days detained in Acayucan. The food and water they gave her during her stay caused discomfort in the young woman. The reason, she later learned, was the high iodine content. After this nightmare on her journey through Mexico, she has been in the state of Kentucky (USA) for a week.

In early March, relatives and friends of the detained migrants blocked the main entrance to the place to demand their release. Some managed to get out days later, but others still remain there.

Attacks on migrants are a recurring theme. The Institute for Security and Democracy, AC Insyde, showed in 2017 that “one in three migrants who were detained in Veracruz suffered some physical, psychological or verbal aggression at the time of immigration verification,” the report reads. “Only one in ten people detained by the INM denounces the attacks suffered.”

This Monday a group of Cubans burned some mats and clothes in protest at keeping them “deprived of their liberty.” The authorities indicate that they are leading a riot, the third so far this month.

“The rights of these people and of free transit are being violated,” Gabriel Domínguez, defender of migrants from the island, tells 14ymedio, showing the official letter with folio 4840 endorsed by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), the Commission National Refugee Aid (Comar) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Acnur).

Elements of the National Guard, an anti-riot squad and state police arrived at the scene in support of the immigration agents. Anomalies at this site have been reported by this journal.

On the other hand, this Tuesday 17 Cubans were detained at the Puebla Passenger Bus Station. An anonymous call alerted Immigration and the National Guard about the group traveling on a bus headed to Mexico City. The natives of the Island said that they left the state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala.

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Armed Agents Hide in the Undergrowth to Prevent Cubans Crossing the Rio Grande to the US

Armed members of the AIC followed the Coahuila migration plan to precent crossings of the Rio Grande from Acuña to Del Río (Texas). (Facebook/Coahuila State Attorney General’s Office)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 20 April 2022 — The Government of the Mexican state of Coahuila, bordering the United States, this Wednesday integrated elements of the Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC), a body created in 2013 to combat crime, with the Migrant Containment Plan, with which seeks to prevent undocumented immigrants crossing the Rio Grande.

The operation began in the Braulio Fernández park, in Ciudad Acuña, through which dozens of migrants pass daily to Del Río (Texas). “This site is one of the key points,” a rescuer from Grupo Beta tells 14ymedio, which is used by “Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans” to cross to US soil.

“In mid-March, 1,500 migrants arrived in the US in one day. They returned 800. And a wave of foreigners is expected before the end of this month,” estimates the rescuer. “The plan is to stop the groups before they reach the banks of the river.”

The Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) registered the arrival of 80,000 Cubans in the US between October 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022. And in Mexico, on April 16 Migration reported the arrest of 15,907 people originating from the Island. “The figures are from this year, in less than four months, about 1,800 of these arrests have been registered in Coahuila,” the source from the Grupo Beta shares. continue reading

The rescuer assures that at all times “the human rights of migrants will be respected and they will only be prevented from crossing the Rio Grande,” but he did not know how to respond to the carrying of weapons, visible in the images posted by the Coahuila Attorney General’s Office.

The Migrant Containment Plan is among the agreements reached on April 14 by the Governor of Coahuila, Miguel Riquelme, with the Texas Republican Governor, Greg Abbott, who at the beginning of the month announced the placement of barbed wire in the lower areas of the river Bravo to contain the migration.

Riquelme, on the other hand, opted for the deployment of 200 agents, including armed municipal and state police officers and members of the AIC, who hide in the undergrowth of the Braulio Fernández park, lying in wait for migrants who manage to evade the patrols located in the streets surrounding the river. As soon as the operation began, six Haitians were arrested and handed over to Immigration.

Minutes after the operation began in Ciudad Acuña, the arrest of six Haitians was reported. (Facebook/Coahuila State Attorney General’s Office)

Close to this area. six days ago, Grupo Beta warned Daniela Anaya, a 26-year-old Cuban with her 7-year-old son Dismel Arce, not to cross the tributary to the United States due to the strength of the current and the danger it represented for them.

And it was here in the Braulio Fernández park where Guillermo Alan Matos was found in shock after losing his wife Alexa Nadine, a Uruguayan national, and his son Ismael. They both drowned.

Wilmer Mantos, who is heading to Piedras Negras, and spent 37 days in the migration center of Acayucan, Veracruz, says that the Government of Mexico “wants to pass us off as criminals, when what we are doing is fleeing from a dictatorship, but they’re going to stop these people.”

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Mexican Police Identify Cubans by Their ‘Tennies’ and Extort Them to Cross the Rio Grande

The passage of Cubans through Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negras, in the state of Coahuila, to Texas (USA) increased in the last week. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 14 April 2022 — There is no official figure, but “this week on average almost 1,300 people a day crossed the Rio Grande from the Mexican city of Piedras Negras (Coahuila) to Eagle Pass (USA),” Francisco Manrique, a member of Mexican government’s Grupo Beta de Protección a Migrantes, confirms to 14ymedio.

“The Cubans reach the banks of the river in groups of up to 60 people with Nicaraguans and some Venezuelans,” says the rescuer. “If we talk about Acuña and Piedras Negras, the passage of Antilleans through the channel exceeds 300.”

Some of these crossings were captured by journalist Ricardo Arambarri from Univisión. He verified the persecution of municipal police against a group of at least 17 Cubans who were running towards the river. “It is as if the floodgates were opened so that they could reach the water.” Some fall and manage to get up to reach their goal, others are caught.

“The municipal and liaison police chase those who don’t pay,” says Joel Santos, a resident of Guerrero Street, which is less than 10 minutes away from the so-called Black Railroad Bridge, in Piedras Negras. “These people are passing through there. When the patrols see them, they stop them and charge them money to let them reach the shore.” continue reading

Santos affirms that Haitians, Salvadorans and Guatemalans are charged in pesos, “about 100 or 200” ($5 to $10 USD), but Cubans, “they ask for 100 dollars.” They are distinguished by the way they dress, affirms the local, “the brand of tennis shoes, the clothes” and some are blond or dark-haired with blue or green eyes.

These extortions had already been documented by Ramón Tejera, when police stopped the bus in Ciudad Acuña in which he was traveling with several migrants, all with a transit safe-conduct pass. On their way to the US border, Cubans pay fees to police at checkpoints and those who do not are detained, even if they have permits to be in the country. For not paying a bribe to Immigration, Tejera was returned to the Island along with his wife and daughter.

The Facebook user identified as José López published a video on Facebook on Wednesday in which Coahuila Specialized Police agents are observed extorting money from Central American migrants. Given the evidence, three people were arrested. The Secretary of State Public Security, Sonia Villarreal Pérez reported this Thursday while opening an investigation for the “collection of fees from foreigners at a checkpoint.”

The possibility for parole (being allowed entry to the US) for Cubans announced in March has increased the migratory flow through Ciudad Acuña to reach Del Río (USA), and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) has publicized that the Cuban government’s recently announced policy that it will not accept back to the Island Cubans deported by the Biden government. This “will generate a bigger problem for Coahuila,” said Manrique, a rescuer from Grupo Beta. “This can overwhelm us, we are already seeing it.”

This is no time to challenge the Rio Grande. Local media carry out night tours, in which they have videotaped the passage of Cubans under the Black Railway Bridge. ImpactoVisión Noticias shared the moment in which a family, including four adults and two minors, manage to arrive in Texas.

Among the figures the Rio Grande generates, is the record of deaths. As of this Thursday, Civil Protection reports 47 deaths in attempts to reach the US. This Wednesday morning, the discovery of a body was reported at the height of the Morelos neighborhood. Two more, one person from the Dominican Republic, were confirmed by Eagle Pass authorities and in the afternoon neighbors reported a body floating yards from the border bridge.

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Nine Cubans Seeking Political Asylum in the EU Get Caught Up in Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

The migrants have been held since January 6 at the migration center located in Nikolayev, Ukraine. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 4 March 2022 — Early this Thursday morning, at 3:45 a.m. “the explosion of a bomb woke us up,” Diosdeny Santana told 14ymedio. “Here it is already afternoon and the whole day we have heard bombings.” This activist from the opposition Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) has been held since January 6 along with eight other Cubans in the migration center located in Nikolayev, Ukraine.

On February 24, just the day they were going to be transferred to Serbia to continue their journey in search of “political asylum in Italy, Spain or Germany,” Russia began the military deployment against Ukraine. “The war has caught us here,” says this 37-year-old Cuban. “Civil aviation is stopped dead and there is no transport,” the authorities have informed them.

“We know that there is a military attack and that it is Russian,” explains Santana, who has sent América TeVé and Telemundo videos with fighter planes flying over and bombing near the place where they are. “What we hear, from what little we understand, is that this place is surrounded by Russians.”

On last Wednesday, Russian troops increased the pressure on the siege on Mariupol, a strategic city located in the Donetsk region and bathed by the coast of the Sea of Azov, as is the case with Nikolayev, while they already control Melitopol, in the region of Zaporozhie, published EFE. continue reading

“We trust that some government will listen to us and help us leave, the Cuban exile in Miami, human rights,” implores Santana, who on October 27, 2021, left the island via Moscow, because “I couldn’t travel to the United States because of the covid problem in Cuba.”

The group, made up of José Antonio González Corralez, Luis Arberto González Pérez, Yosiel Hernández Ramírez, Luis Miguel Reyes Romero, Raicel Sedeño, Iris Dali Tobal, María Fernanda and Rannelys Trujillo Gort, is gripped by fear and nerves, says the activist. “We have the suitcase packed, because we have to run to the tunnel every time a siren is heard.”

José Antonio González, who emigrated the same day as Santana, tells 14ymedio that after entering Ukraine they were “detained by the border guard in Kharkov, the country’s second largest city, because fatigue and the cold got the best of us. In the end After seven days we went on trial and each one of us was fined 400 dollars.”

The nine migrants, González explains, were taken to a second trial where a translator was assigned to them. They warned them not to ask for political asylum during this process, “that this would be in the refuge they would send us to later” and in which they would have a lawyer.

Originally from Pinar del Río, this 36-year-old Cuban says that this Friday they sent a letter to Amnesty International and another human rights organization. “They have just informed us that there is a truce,” he says, referring to the humanitarian corridors agreed by Moscow and Kiev in the negotiations, “but they do not know how long it will last. At any moment they start attacking and this turns into hell. We fear for our lives. We want them to help us get out and we continue on our way.”

González left the island months after having participated in the demonstrations of July 11 and before the police siege. “We are good people. We are not murderers, if we leave Cuba it is because of the regime.”

The activist Diosdeny Santana, who has been in prison for expressing his opposition to a government that for “62 years has been destroying its people,” points out that Cubans do not emigrate for pleasure. “On July 11, people took to the streets demanding freedom, homeland and life. And the dictatorship sent out its people to repress them.”

That way of showing itself as a repressive dictatorship, Santana assures, is the same that it has exhibited before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “This is terrible. Maduro in Venezuela, Ortega in Nicaragua and Cuba are on Putin’s side.”

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Cuban Baseball Player Spends the ‘Saddest Night Of His Life’ With His Family in a Kiev Shelter

Raidel Arbelay Becerra spent this Thursday with his family, his wife and two children, in a shelter near Kiev. (Raidel Arbelay)

14ymedio, Angel Salinas, Mexico, 25 February 2022 — Cuban Raidel Arbelay Becerra spent “the saddest night of his life” in Kiev with his family, his wife and two children, he tells 14ymedio. This Thursday, while reporting on the presence of Russian troops in the Ukrainian capital and the bombing, a drone was shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force. The aircraft “fell 70 meters from our house and we made the decision to flee.”

Arbelay heard on the news that in the first 24 hours the Russian military deployment caused the death of 137 Ukrainians. “War has neither friends nor winners, only losers, families in mourning, mothers without children and much more,” he stresses.

The athlete arrived in Ukraine in 1996, where he met several Cubans — at least 70 are in Kiev — and “right now we are all tense because it is expected that this Friday night the city will be attacked by the Russian aggressor.” He knows that some migrants have sought refuge in the capital’s suburbs; and others, like him and his family, in the basements of houses. continue reading

Through Ukraine’s presidential spokesman, Sergei Nikiforov, Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed that they agreed to hold negotiations on the ceasefire and peace, according to RT. “There is a lot of misinformation,” says Arbelay. “This Friday we hope to leave for the area where they are not bombing.” The athlete’s plans do not change, he seeks to reach the border with Poland with his family.

In this conflict, the Cuban authorities have reiterated their support for Russia in the official media. “I am ashamed of the Government of my country”, expresses an annoyed Arbelay. He does not understand why the island supported “the decision of the Russian president to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Lugansk.”

The Cubans who are in Kiev, the player insists, have not received assistance or support to transfer them to safe areas. “The embassy hates us.” The situation at the moment is difficult, but we try to “stay very close.”

Arbelay’s children have spent an uneasy night. “They don’t understand much about the reason for this war.” The calls received by people who share the shelter in a friend’s house, confirm “shots and explosions in Oblon,” a residential neighborhood of Kiev, in addition to “battles in Dymer and Ivankiv.”

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Caribbean Mexican Authorities Are Alerted About More Cubans Arriving by Boat

Photo of the boat abandoned on the beach known as The Secret, on the Mayan Riviera. (Facebook/Quintana Roo Panorama)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 16 February 2022 — Authorities from the states of Yucatán and Quintana Roo were advised by the National Migration Institute (NMI) of the arrival of Cuban balseros [rafters] to the Mexican Caribbean. Last Wednesday, a boat was abandoned on the beach known as “The Secret” on the Mayan Riviera.

The Secret beach is 30 miles south of Cancún, so the “crew had to have help leaving the place in vehicles,” Raúl Tassinari, the police chief, told 14ymedio. “They had adapted a car engine, and we even found containers of gasoline and clothing.”

The discovery of the arrival took place the same day that representatives of the National Migration Institute (NMI) had a meeting with personnel from the Cuban Consulate in Cancún, in which they talked about cooperation and coordination in respect to migratory matters. Tassarini reported that in February alone they had reports of three events related to Cuban rafters.

“The Navy was informed of the vessel so that it could be secured, and the port captain and Immigration were also notified,” emphasizes the officer, who doesn’t rule out the deployment in the coming days of elements of the National Guard and the Army to stop the entry of migrants through Quintana Roo.

According to figures from the NMI, the state of Quintana Roo has become a route for the illegal entry of Cubans in recent years. Between October and December 2021, 29 rafters who arrived at Isla Mujeres were detained. Of 60 Cubans detained in that same year, 45 were deported and 15 received legal advice to obtain refuge. continue reading

The boat used by Cuban rafters is found abandoned on the eastern coast of the island area of Isla Mujeres and serves as a tourist attraction.

On February 12, another boat was abandoned on the eastern coast of the island area of Isla Mujeres, at the height of the Colegio de Bachilleres. The state police confirmed to this newspaper that the migrants “got into a truck, so the surveillance cameras are already being checked.” The island’s natives left medicines, 200-liter drums, canned food in bags, as well as men’s and women’s clothing on the raft.

Ten days earlier, personnel assigned to the Fifth Naval Region rescued seven Cuban rafters, who were shipwrecked 43 nautical miles northeast of Isla Contoy. The migrants were transferred to the Puerto Juárez naval station. A Migration source indicates that this group would be deported.

Last January, members of the Navy in the city of Cancún detained seven Cubans on the boulevard near the Plaza Kukulcán shopping center, after the undocumented immigrants were captured by the video surveillance cameras of the C5 Security Complex. The alert of the arrival of rafters was also extended to the state of Yucatan, confirmed the Mayan Riviera official.

Collaborate with our work: The 14ymedio team is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the profound reality of Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of our newspaper. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Group of Cubans Denounce Scammer Who Offers Visas and Entry to United States for $6,000

Image of Cuban and Venezuelan migrants in a shelter in the Mexican state of NL. (Collage)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 13 January 2022 — “It’s a scam,” Facebook users warned Roberto when he asked how reliable the announcement that Andrés Ramiro Naranjo Pardo uploaded to social networks might be, in which he offered to cross migrants to the United States. “I’ll pass you to the US with ’parole’* included,” read this Cuban who is together with his wife in the Mexican state of Baja California.

“Don’t believe anything,” Internet user Ana María warned him. “He has several profiles and mobile numbers. He is a fraud.” Ana María shared her case with 14ymedio: “When you’re desperate to leave Cuba, you look for the ways and this guy knew how to deceive us. He sold a family member an appointment at the embassy. It was all a lie. I don’t know how we believed.”

Naranjo, who presented himself as a native of Havana, made two deposits of $3,000 to the BanCoppel account 4169160813668085. “When we looked for him to make a demand he wanted more money. He is a very skilled scammer,” warns Ana María. continue reading

Yanet, another of the scammers, was contacted by the same scammer through the same social network. He introduced himself as Andrés Naranjo and said he worked at the National Migration Institute (INM). He offered to transfer her to Mexico from Guyana, where she works in a hospital.

For the paperwork, Naranjo asked Yanet for $5,000. “It is very difficult to leave this way, there is a lot of jungle and dangers, that’s why I shared his name in a group of Cubans, and a girl alerted me to this guy and others asked me not to do any business” with him.

The person identified as Andrés Ramiro Naranjo Pardo has at least 20 profiles on Facebook. In some he appears as a naturalized Mexican, in others as a lawyer, teacher, referee and even soccer coach. In March 2021, he stated that every weekend he shared barbecues with technical directors of Mexican soccer: “Miguel Herrera, José el Profe Cruz, Rafael Puente (the son), Francisco el Gatillero Palencia.”

A migration source tells this newspaper that the people who have been victims of this trickster “are innocent” by sending money without guarantees. “They can flood the networks with accusations, the unfortunate thing is that this subject is laughing because he knows that we cannot act against him. Mexico does not sell visas. The way he has stolen them is even childish.”

In October, a Facebook user identified as Sombra de Luz denounced Naranjo in the group Foreigners in Mexico. “He is an unscrupulous thief,” they stressed, saying that every time he scams he changes his phone number and profile. “He is discrediting the Mexican embassy in Havana by saying that he has contacts there and that he can get a visa in Cuba for Mexico.”

Over time, in another Facebook group, Anielis Torres exposed Naranjo as “a scammer” who even offered “apartment rentals and offered work to women.” He scammed the woman from Sancti Spiritus with the promise of giving her documents to process her visa. “Today, before 10 pm they are delivered to me, we stay late-night, can’t eat yearnings, thanks and greetings,” was one of the last messages received before he disappeared.

Internet user David AlBaqq shared another of Naranjo’s announcements on the networks on December 4, in which he asked “truly interested people” to send him 10% of the cost of the $6,000 visa to a Banco Azteca account. “The rest of the money is paid after being authorized by the Mexican consul in Havana.”

Currently, Andrés Ramiro Naranjo Pardo appears on social networks as a retired worker from the Petróleos Mexicanos company. And now he guarantees through social networks the crossing to the United States through the Mexicali Centro port of entry, in Baja California, a border state with the United States. He even promises to take the migrants “to the door of your house in Miami or whatever city in the United States where your relatives live.”

For years, Cubans in their desperation to leave the Island, have been victims of scams, extortion, kidnapping and even rape. In October 2021, this newspaper received the testimony of several migrants who were victims of rape during their journey through Darien. Ana, a 45-year-old Cuban told Doctors Without Borders her bitter experience. She, along with other migrants, were threatened with guns. The women were not searched, they were taken directly to the top of the slope and raped.

*Translator’s note: In this context “parole” means legal entry.

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Cubans Pay up to $4,000 to Cross from Guatemala to the Mexican State of Veracruz

At the Casa del Migrante La Divina Providencia there are currently three Cubans and 39 other migrants. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 9 December 2021 — The Grijalva River has become one of the routes most exploited in recent months by coyotes to pass migrants from the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, in western Guatemala, to Tenosique, in the Mexican state of Tabasco. Cuban Ernesto Rodríguez told 14ymedio that this is how he crossed in a boat with his wife, his son and 15 other foreigners on November 18.

The group got together on the 17th, he says. “We were in a room without light, we only heard that the route was ’hot’ and that the sailors were already leaving.” Rodríguez, who paid 1,600 dollars to the coyotes to get him to Mexico, says that for getting him to Veracruz they “asked him for 4,000 dollars.’’ Some did pay it. Migrants are taking this route to avoid entering Chiapas, where thousands of Haitians are creating chaos.

The same coyote that left them in Tenosique contacted a truck driver who took them hidden among the load of bananas that he transported to the state of Nuevo León. “On the 20th he left us in a room and only charged us $60, but we soon left for fear of being arrested.” continue reading

The humanitarian visa was processed in Coahuila. “As everything was getting ugly, we left there and traveled until we reached Sonora.” Originally from Holguín, Rodríguez left this Thursday from the La Divina Providencia refuge, located in San Luis Río Colorado, in the state of Sonora which borders the United States, heading towards the immigration station located in the same town, to request information about his wife and his son, who on Sunday were detained by immigration police while he was buying food.

“The humanitarian visa arrived late. With the Stay in Mexico everything was complicated. What I want is that my family gets out,” he explains. The program implemented during the government of Donald Trump — questioned for putting migrants and refugees in danger — was the way for the United States to send 13,000 asylum seekers there, according to a source from the Mexican Foreign Ministry. Since this Monday, it began to be implemented again in cities bordering Texas, Arizona and California.

Given the return of Stay in Mexico, the shelters located in the border area of Sonora are full, “since due to the pandemic we cannot receive more than 42 people,” says Sara Sánchez, who works with the La Divina Providencia refuge. “They are given accommodation for three days. Right now we are full and we had to channel 14 Haitians from the caravan that arrived on Wednesday.”

The Cubans Aledmys and Raúl are also in the refuge. The first also hopes to hear from his family, which was picked up during a detention, and he, to avoid being detained, filled out a form requesting refuge. According to the latest statistics published by the National Commission for Refugees of Mexico (Comar), as of November 30, 8,148 Cubans had requested refuge and 2,538 have been approved. Many carry out the process in order to obtain a humanitarian visa to be able to travel through the country towards the northern border, cross into the United States and request asylum.

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