A large part of the Cuban population wishes to emigrate from the Island or knows someone who intends to leave the country due to the serious economic crisis that affects the Greater Antilles, and while there are several programs to emigrate legally to United States, there are still those who risk everything to cross the border of the North American country illegally.
In these cases, it must be taken into account that Cubans who arrive to the United States legally through the Program Parole Humanitarian, the Visa Lottery or an appointment through CBP One, receive a parole which allows them to apply for one permanent residence per year thanks to the Cuban Adjustment Act, but those who cross the border are less likely to receive one of these documents.
Journalist Daniel Benítez, in an attempt to represent these probabilities in numbers, consulted with a lawyer who analyzed official statistics from Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
This analysis took into account data collected between October 2022 and September 2023, that is, the previous fiscal year, and revealed that a very difficult time awaits migrants who do not comply with the new immigration laws implemented by Joe Biden.
Initially, a considerable number of wordsas in November 2022, when more than 138,000 migrants were detained under Title 8 and about 90,000 of them received the precious document, however, this number became practically nonexistent in the last months of the fiscal year, with only one person receiving parole in September 2023, the month in which almost 220,000 people were detained.
From a mathematical point of view, these figures indicate that only 0.0004% of migrants who crossed the US border illegally in September of this year received a parole.
In that sense, the expert warned that the possibilities of obtaining a parole after crossing the US border illegally were minuscule, almost non-existent, so he recommended not doing so, especially because those who have been deported will face severe sanctions, such as a ban on entry into the country of up to 10 years, even if They try it legally.
Official data indicated that the situation caused an increase in the number of voluntary returns. For comparison, 2,225 of them were registered in October 2022, while the last month of 2023 recorded 20,499 cases. This option is immediate, but implies giving up any asylum process.
