14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2023 — Beginning Saturday, the Border Patrol began the return of Cubans and Nicaraguans to Mexico. Real America’s Voice journalist, Auden Cabello, shared on Sunday a video of the delivery of migrants to Mexican agents of the National Migration Institute at Internacional Bridge 2, located in Piedras Negras (Coahuila).
The return takes place while a “group of processed migrants look and wait to enter legally under the new probation program,” the reporter said on his social networks. The expulsion of these Cubans occurred under Title 42, a controversial regulation implemented by the previous president, Donald Trump, during the coronavirus pandemic and that allows rapid deportations.
Cabello, who has been in the area for several days, revealed the modus operandi of the US and Mexican authorities for the expulsion of Cubans. He documented through videos the crossings of families on the Rio Grande. According to what he said, after surrendering, the Border Patrol separates them and processes them in less than two hours.
They put them in vans and deliver them to Mexican Migration agents. A woman, who crossed with her sick daughter, told the journalist that the Border Patrol kept their documents and expelled them. The Cuban was put on a bus that took her to the state of Guerrero. The intention “is to keep them away from the border and make it more difficult for them to cross, because they know that expulsion is not deportation.”
This newspaper asked Migration of Piedras Negras for a comment on the expulsions and the destinations where Cubans are taken, but they refused to provide the information.
On Monday, the Government of Mexico supported the Biden Administration’s program in which in exchange for 30,000 ’paroles’ [that is permitting 30,000 to enter] per month, the US will deport Cubans and others who arrive in an irregular manner. “It’s a little light at the end of the tunnel; it’s already an option; it’s already an alternative because they have decided to grant visas or permits,” said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Mexico agreed to receive irregular migrants who are expelled from the neighboring country while the United States explores mechanisms to increase investments in Central America and tackle the root causes of forced migration, a source told the EFE agency.
At the same conference offered by the Government of Mexico, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard, confirmed with a graph that during 2022, Cubans were the most common among the migrants who entered through the southern border of the United States. According to Border Patrol data, 294,816 Island nationals, 209,832 Nicaraguans, 157,855 Venezuelans, 154,919 Colombians, 59,937 Haitians, 53,175 Ecuadorians and 831,455 of other nationalities were arrested, a total of 1,761,989 people.
The Mexican chancellor mentioned that Biden’s proposal consists of “investment in the countries of Central America and other countries, because people are migrating due to poverty, essentially,” and that an attempt should be made to “regulate” migration through offering the possibility of “going to the United States to work,” which he called “work mobility.”
According to Ebrard, “for the first time the US has begun to talk about official documents,” which will allow people from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti to carry out an online procedure instead of going on a journey where coyotes “deal with them in an inhuman way and put them at risk.”
This Tuesday, Mexico will host the Summit of North American Leaders, known as the Three Friends, with the participation of the presidents of Mexico, the United States and Canada.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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