After Cuba and the United States held a new round of immigration talks, both nations agreed to increase the number of deportation flights.
The decision was made after Castro’s vice chancellor Carlos Fernández de Cossío stated that the regime was willing to accept more than one flight per month, a limit that had been in place since the middle of last year.
Deportation flights resumed in April 2023, after several months of being suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, 12 flights have been made to return Cuban citizens who were in an irregular situation within the country..
In total, 566 people have been returned, many of whom received I-220A deportation orders after entering the country irregularly through the country’s southern border.
Another portion, although much smaller, is made up of Cuban rafters who were detained by the US Border Patrol (USBP) after making landfall in the Florida Keys.
While the first of the repatriation flights left Florida with 123 passengers, subsequent air operations were carried out with a much smaller number of people, wasting much of the capacity of the planes used.
The second of the planes took off towards Havana with 66 Cubans, while the third, fourth and fifth flights had 36, 33 and 29 passengers, respectively.
The sixth flight was organized with 35 people on board, while the next two flights returned 27 and 37 citizens back to the Greater Antilles.
The last four flights, mostly in 2024, transported 31, 37, 51 and 61 passengers, giving a total of 566 repatriated Cubans.
Cuba requires non-immigrant visa processing on the Island
During the same round of talks, the Castro government demanded that the US resume the processing service for temporary visit visas (non-immigrant visas) on the Island.
According to the vice chancellor, many people do not intend to reside permanently in the United States, but rather are looking for temporary options to visit relatives in the territory, so this is a necessary service.
According to the official during an interview, the current visa management influences the immigration decisions of citizens, many of whom take advantage of the Cuban Adjustment Law, due to the difficulty in obtaining temporary visas.
In that sense, the vice minister suggested that the improvement in the processing of these visas could alter the immigration pattern and favor the United States; however, only time will tell if Joe Biden’s administration listens to the representative of the regime.
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