The United States authorities carried out a deportation flight on Thursday, February 22, returning to the Island more than 51 Cubans who were detained for being in North American territory illegally.
This would be the 11th operation carried out by the US since deportation flights resumed in April of last year, after a pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior (Minint) through an official statement, 243 Cubans have been returned since 2024 began, this after 19 different operations (both air and sea) carried out by neighboring nations such as the United States. , Mexico, Cayman Islands and the Bahamas.
The US returned #Cuba this Thursday 51 irregular migrants by air. Between January and February, another 20 have been returned from the Cayman Islands, Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.
There are 19 operations with 243 returned both by air and sea from those origins in 2024 pic.twitter.com/R0LF4nmBZI— MININT_CUBA (@minint_cuba) February 23, 2024
The majority of these migrants turn out to be rafters returned by the US Coast Guard (USCG), while air operations represent a much smaller number, this due to the low utilization of aircraft space.
Deportation flights from the US below maximum capacity
The first deportation flight carried out in April of last year had 123 passengers, and to date, it has been the flight with the largest capacity organized by the North American nation. Since then, subsequent flights have seen a considerable decrease, taking off with 50% of the capacity of the aircraft used for this task.
After the first flight, the second air operation carried out by the US took off with 66 Cubans, while the number decreased to 36 and 33 passengers during flight three and four, respectively.
The fifth flight had only 29 passengers, while the sixth had 35. The seventh took off with 27 people, being until now the deportation flight with the smallest capacity made by the US.
The eighth flight had 37 passengers, while the ninth took off with 31, the tenth with 37 and the most recent with the 51 Cubans mentioned.
In total, these 11 air operations served to deport 505 people, and while half a thousand deportations may sound like a considerable number, this number could have been double if they had taken advantage of the more than 180 seats that the planes used to return usually have. to the Cubans.
#deportation #flight #returns #Cubans #Island
