The official delegations of the governments of Cuba and the United States held a new round of immigration talks this Tuesday, November 14, to address issues such as the mass exodus of Cubans and the tense situation in Mexico and on the southern border of the North American country.
Carlos Fernández de Cossio, vice chancellor of Cuba, indicated on social networks that the US officials who arrived in Havana met with the Cuban side to discuss these issues, reviewing “the existing bilateral agreements, aimed at ensuring that migration between both countries is regular, safe and orderly.”
Today, Nov. 14, talks between Cuba and the United States on migration issues take place in Havana, in which the existing bilateral agreements are reviewed, aimed at ensuring that migration between both countries is regular, safe and orderly. pic.twitter.com/NIVLOtaIU2
— Carlos F. de Cossio (@CarlosFdeCossio) November 14, 2023
In recent months, cooperation between both countries regarding migration has increased, despite the sanctions that the United States maintains on the regime and the fact that Cuba is on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
In similar conversations held in previous months, the United States gave in to several demands from the Island, including the issuance of 20,000 annual visas for family reunification. For its part, the Island began to accept repatriation flights leaving from the US again, something it stopped doing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Migration situation between both countries
At the beginning of the year, Joe Biden’s government announced the Humanitarian Parola Program, which offered 30,000 monthly visas to citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, as long as they had a sponsor in the country to take care of the expenses. food and housing.
The measure, which represented a new opportunity to reach the United States legally, required that Cubans not try to enter the country through Mexico’s northern border, which is why the number of irregular entries decreased in the following months.
However, this did not prevent Cubans from continuing to travel to Mexico to wait at the border, flying legally to Nicaragua and leaving the Central American country to join the flow of illegal migrants.
As a consequence, the nations between Nicaragua and the US began to experience a greater movement of migrants. In particular, Mexico’s immigration authorities were overwhelmed by the number of foreigners arriving at their borders, causing Thousands will be stranded in the city of Tapachula, Chiapas, for several weeks.
To deal with the situation, The US government admitted that it is exploring options to eliminate flights between Cuba and Nicaraguathus cutting off the flow of potential migrants leaving the Island with the aim of emigrating north.
