EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 7 March 2023 — More than 2,600 Cubans who were trying to migrate have been returned to their country from different nations so far this year, the Ministry of the Interior of the Island reported on Monday after including the last 75 returned by the United States.
The United States Coast Guard delivered a group of rafters a day earlier — 54 men, 20 women and a minor, most of them residents in the provinces of Matanzas and Granma — to the Cuban authorities through the Port of Orozco.
These people, without documentation, had participated in six illegal exits from the country by sea and were then intercepted by the US Coast Guard, the note said.
It also specified that with this operation — number 25 of the US Coast Guard Service in 2022 — a total of 1,918 Cuban rafters had been returned.
One of those returned is under detention “for finding himself as an alleged source of serious criminal acts, which were investigated prior to his departure,” it added.
Last week, other groups of irregular Cuban migrants were deported by the governments of Mexico (22 people), the Bahamas (128) and the United States (41).
The Government of Cuba insists that it maintains its commitment “to regular, safe and orderly migration” and insists on “the danger and life-threatening conditions represented by illegal departures from the country by sea.”
In addition to the Bahamas, Mexico and the United States, so far this year migrants have also been deported to Cuba from the Cayman Islands and the Dominican Republic.
In the case of the United States, since October 1, U.S. Coast Guard crews have intercepted more than 5,740 Cubans, a high figure compared to previous years.
At the beginning of 2023, the Government of Washington implemented a policy to welcome 30,000 monthly migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua. In parallel, it will immediately expel to Mexico migrants from those countries who try to cross its southern border in an irregular way.
Mexico, for its part, agreed to admit 30,000 migrants a month who are sent from U.S. territory.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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