The United States authorities carried out a new deportation flight this Thursday, April 25, with which they returned 47 Cuban migrants back to the Greater Antilles.
This is the fourth operation of this type to be carried out during the current year. Likewise, it is the 13th that has been carried out since deportation flights restarted in April 2023, after they had to be suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As in the previous flights, the almost 50 Cubans were transferred to the ‘José Martí’ International Airport, in Havana, aboard a plane from the Global X company, which usually makes charter flights to Cuba as part of the licenses granted. by the US Department of Transportation.
While the aircraft has space for up to 140 passengers, it only departed with 47, less than half of the maximum capacity.
According to an official statement from the Ministry of the Interior (Minint), the flight carried out this Thursday was the 32nd deportation operation carried out by a neighboring country so far in 2024.
These operations are usually carried out by neighboring nations such as the United States, Mexico, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas, and so far this year, they have returned 476 Cubans by flights or through maritime operations.
Today the fourth air operation to return 47 irregular migrants by the US authorities took place. This is number 32 from different countries in the region with 476 people returning so far this year. pic.twitter.com/75RayiBRqE
— MININT_CUBA (@minint_cuba) April 25, 2024
Deportation flights leave from the US with few passengers
After the US and Cuba resumed these air operations in 2023these have taken off towards the Island with a number well below the maximum capacity of the planes used.
The only exception was the first, which transferred 123 Cubans who were irregularly in North American territory. After that, the aircraft have transported an average of 50 passengers in each operation, with some of them not exceeding 30.
Since its resumption, one deportation flight has been carried out per month; however, during the last meeting to carry out bilateral dialogues between Cuba and the United States, the vice chancellor of the Island, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, stated that the government was willing to increase the frequency at which these flights arrived in the Greater Antilles.
In this meeting, the official also stressed the importance of reactivating the non-immigrant visa processing service on the Island, this for temporary visits. According to the vice chancellor, many of the migrants do not seek to reside permanently in the United States and only need alternatives for family visits or transnational businesses.
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