By EFE
Jun 17, 2024, 9:48 PM EDT
Havana, June 17 (EFE).- The United States Coast Guard (USCG) returned a total of 19 rafters to Cuba this Monday, bringing the number of Cubans deported from different countries in the region to 688. 2024, according to official media.
The returnees on this date had participated in four illegal departures through the northwest area of the island and were later intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard, according to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior (Minint).
With this operation carried out by the port of Orozco, in the province of Artemisa (west), there are 47 returns so far this year.
The island authorities affirm that they remain “firm” in their commitment to “safe and orderly” migration, while insisting on warning of the danger and life-threatening conditions that illegal departures from the country represent.
Cuba and the United States have a bilateral agreement so that all migrants who arrive by sea to US territory are returned to the island.
Deportation flights also resumed in April 2023, mainly for people considered “inadmissible” after being detained on the US border with Mexico.
According to data published by the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP), last April 17,870 Cubans arrived by sea and land on US soil, the majority through the land border with Mexico.
With that figure, there are 144,378 Cubans who have entered the United States in fiscal year 2024, which began on October 1, added the CBP.
Since the beginning of the year, Cubans have also been deported on commercial flights from the Cayman Islands, Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.
In the last two years, Cuba has registered an unprecedented migratory exodus both in terms of the volume of migrants and its temporal extension due to the serious economic crisis it is suffering with frequent and prolonged power outages, shortages of food, medicine and fuel, galloping inflation, and a partial dollarization of the economy.
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