The Cuban Foreign Ministry stresses that these citizens are the victims of the politicization of the migration issue by the U.S. government, the Cuban Adjustment Act and in particularly by the dry feet-wet feet policy, which encourage irregular migration from Cuba to the USA in violation of the current migration accords.
Advertisement
During the first three months of this year, US Customs and Border Protection said 9,371 Cubans made it safely to our shores.
Blocking traffic at the border in a bid to force Nicaragua to relent, numerous Cuban migrants say they sold their belongings to make the journey and that there can be no turning back. It may cost thousands of dollars. Still, the numbers taking this trip are growing exponentially. Ecuador does not require a visa for Cubans to enter the country.
More than 45,000 Cubans arrived at US checkpoints along the border between Texas and Mexico in the fiscal year that ended in September.
Cuba’s Foreign Ministry complained that the USA migration policies were “incongruous” with the new relationship between the United States and Cuba and could “put up obstacles in the normalisation of migratory relations between Cuba and the United States and create problems for other countries”.
So far Cubans faced only the difficulties encountered during their journey, either by land or sea.
Earlier this week, Nicaragua closed its border to Cubans.
They say the Cubans at the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border are living a similar experience just 21 years later.
Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel González said in a radio interview Tuesday that there are almost 2,000 people now at the border being blocked by Nicaraguan soldiers from entering the country.
“Those persons left Cuba legally to different Latin American nations, but in the attempt to reach USA territory they have become the victims of human traffickers and criminal gangs, which unscrupulously profit from their control of the flow of these persons through South, Central America and Mexico”, the statement noted.
And this is becoming increasingly hard as Nicaraguan officials are refusing to grant the Cubans permission to enter their country.
Cuba’s Communist government on Tuesday blamed U.S. Cold War-era immigration legislation for the migrant crisis, but US officials have repeatedly said there are no plans to change it.
Ortega also accused Costa Rica of “unleashing a humanitarian crisis with serious consequences for our region”.
“Many people don’t have any idea what is going on”, said Taylor Torres, 30, a blogger who said he found out about the swell of Cubans pushed away from the Nicaraguan border only after reading a story on the Internet, which many Cubans do not have access to. He attributed the situation to mounting desperation in Cuba in the wake of the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba jointly announced last December by President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro.
The reason? Many Cubans desperate to leave their island fear that warming relations could lead to the repeal of the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act.
The problem is not in the United States, but in the journey. Many have died trying to cross the Florida Straits.
The US State Department issued this comment on Wednesday: “We are aware of the situation involving Cuban migrants seeking to journey through Central America and Mexico”. The proposed humanitarian corridor would seek to protect their rights as they travel north through Central America.
Advertisement
These Cubans are in danger of having no place to go and no way of getting to the United States.
