In May, 9,500 migrants from Cuba received the benefit of U.S. Humanitarian Parole
14ymedio, Mario Vallejo, Havana, 21 June 2024 — A total of 105,000 Cubans have benefited from the humanitarian parole program promoted by the Biden government since its entry into force in January 2023. Of these, as of May 31, 98,200 are the United States, and records indicate that 9,500 Cubans arrived on flights that month. Data updated on June 20 by the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirm that migrants from the Island are the third nationality to benefit from this program. Haitians top the list of entry approvals with 193,400, and Venezuelans with 113,400.
After ending Title 42 – a rule created by the Trump Administration for the return of migrants during the pandemic – in January 2023 Washington decided to open a special permit or humanitarian parole to applicants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, which it had previously done with Ukraine and Venezuela.
Haitians top the list of admission approvals with 193,400, followed by Venezuelans with 113,400
In May of this year, the immigration authorities of the United States denied entry into its territory to Liván Fuentes Álvarez, president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power on Cuba’s La Isla de la Juventud [Isle of Youth] between 2019 and 2022 and a staunch defender of the regime, despite the fact that he had been granted humanitarian parole.
He was told about the revocation of the permit before boarding a charter flight to the United States. The former official told Martí Noticias that he had resigned from his position as president of the municipal People’s Power for opposing “a group of economic and political issues” of the Cuban government. “My intervention in the events of 11 July [2021] has nothing to do with what they are blaming me for,” he said.
Manuel Alejandro Marrero Medina, son of the Island’s Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, was also prevented last May from traveling to the United States after he had previously been approved as a beneficiary of the humanitarian parole. On the other hand, the Customs and Border Protection Office also announced that in May 18,988 Cubans arrived in the United States, a figure higher than the 17,870 who entered in April. In the first five months of 2024 there were 100,179 migrants from the Island.
The border ports located in Tijuana and Matamoros recorded 400 appointments a day
Last May, the United States processed more than 44,500 people through appointments at the border entry points using information sent through the CBP One application, the app through which migrants can apply for asylum.
The agency stated that from January 2023 to the end of May 2024, more than 636,600 people “have successfully scheduled appointments to show up at the ports of entry instead of risking their lives in the hands of smugglers.”
The border ports located 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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