A total of 123 irregular migrants were returned to Cuba by the authorities of the United States and the Bahamas, and with them there are 3,526 citizens of the island repatriated from various nations in the region in the course of 2023, the Ministry of the Interior reported this Friday ( Minint).
Of these last migrants, 82 rafters are returned by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) through the port of Orozco, in the Artemisa province, for a cumulative 2,588 returnees in 39 operations carried out this year.
This group is made up of 67 men and 15 women, two of them advanced-stage pregnant, the report says.
Last Monday, the United States Government deported 123 irregular Cuban migrants, in the first flight of this type since December 2020.
A part of them had left Cuba legally by air and reached US territory through the land border with Mexico, while others were detained by the US Coast Guard after leaving illegally by sea.
Another 41 migrants (37 men, 3 women and one child) arrived in Havana by air from the Bahamas, with which there are already 599 returnees in 13 operations from that country.
Three of the people deported in these two operations were detained “because they were suspected of committing serious criminal acts that were being investigated since before they became involved in the illegal departures,” said the Ministry.
It also adds that another implicated “was on probation for compliance with criminal sanctions”, for illegally leaving the island, and “will be made available to the corresponding courts for the revocation of said benefit.”
The Cuban authorities affirmed that they remain “firm” in their commitment to “regular, safe and orderly migration,” while warning “of the danger and life-threatening conditions represented by illegal departures from the country by sea, as well as the involvement irresponsible of minors and pregnant women”.
So far in 2023, Cuba has also received returned migrants from the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico.
In the case of the United States, between October 1, which marks the beginning of the current fiscal year, the Coast Guard of that country has registered that it has intercepted more than 6,200 Cuban rafters.
According to data from the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office, a total of 313,488 Cubans arrived in 2022 at border points in its territory with Mexico.
At the beginning of 2023, the US government implemented a policy to welcome 30,000 migrants per month from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua.
In parallel, it will immediately expel migrants from those countries who try to cross the southern border into its territory irregularly to Mexico.
Mexico, for its part, agreed to admit 30,000 migrants a month who are expelled from US territory.
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