14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 15 October 2023 — Mexico resumed, this Saturday, the deportation flights of Cubans with the return by air of 138 people who illegally entered the Aztec country. The return came a day after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed the meeting with 10 leaders, including Miguel Díaz-Canel, on October 22, in Palenque (Chiapas) to define a strategy to stop the migratory flow.
The last week of September, U.S. media reported a meeting in Ciudad Juárez between the National Institute of Migration (INM) and the United States, where it determined to “deport” migrants who are in the cities bordering El Paso, San Diego and Eagle Pass.
“We are supporting people, trying to order the flow of people.” However, a government source told 14ymedio that “there are regions such as Tapachula (Chiapas) and the border with the U.S., which urgently need to be addressed, after insisting that migrants will not be deported. Two weeks later, deportation flights between Mexico and Cuba resumed.
In a statement this Saturday, the Ministry of the Interior of Cuba detailed the arrival on the Island of 95 men and 43 women on a Viva Aerobus flight that arrived at the José Martí International Airport in Havana at 11:55 am. Counting this group, there are now 922 Cubans who were returned by Mexico on 12 flights this year.
The Ministry of the Interior specified this Saturday the arrival on the Island of 95 men and 43 women on a Viva Aerobus flight that arrived at the José Martí International Airport in Havana
The official press indicated that with this operation “returns from the Aztec nation to the Island resume, which have not been carried out since March 3,” when Mexico deported 107 Cuban irregular migrants, including the remains of the Cuban Anet Patricia Aguilera Canto, Anyelina Rodríguez Aguilera and another native of the Island who died in a traffic accident in Veracruz.
Cuba also has a deportation agreement with the United States, in force since last November.
The return of “inadmissible” people was agreed in 2017, but was suspended with the outbreak of COVID-19 and the cooling of bilateral relations after the period of “thaw” promoted by the then leaders of the United States, Barack Obama, and of Cuba, Raúl Castro.
The first flight with deportees from the U.S. arrived in Havana on April 24 with 123 people. That group was followed by another 66 and 36 returnees, respectively, who traveled by plane on May 10 and June 22.
The fourth flight arrived on July 21 with 33 irregular migrants, coinciding with the return of other Cubans by sea, and the fifth took place on August 17.
Last September, the United States returned 35 Cubans who tried to enter irregularly. It was the sixth flight of deportations of nationals of the Island so far this year
The agreement to return the so-called ” inadmissibles ” was added to the current one that allows the return of all Cubans who arrive in the U.S. by sea.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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