37 people returned in one day

Mexican authorities are turning back Cuban migrants without legal status in that country who are trying to access the US’s southern border. This month, deportation flights began at least once a week. This Saturday, October 21, more than thirty people, including men and women, returned to the island.

According to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior (Minint), 65 Cubans who left the country legally or illegally in the past two days were repatriated from Mexico and the Bahamas in accordance with current immigration agreements.

A statement from the state CubePadThis Saturday afternoon, 37 people (32 men and five women) traveling to Mexico with visas attempted to cross into the United States at the “Jose Marti” International Airport in Havana.

A week ago, Mexican authorities deported 138 Cubans on a single plane, the airline Viva Aerobus used to repatriate people from the Aztec lands to Cuba.

That means thousands of Cubans who don’t have documents or are waiting for them in Mexico in cities like Tapachula on the Guatemalan border are at risk of being returned to the island.

More deportations of Cubans this week

Earlier, on Friday, another 28 people (27 men and one woman) who had illegally left Cuba by boat returned on a commercial flight and were intercepted by the US Coast Guard near the Bahamas and taken to that country.

Among those repatriated is one who was on parole when he left the island and will be sued by the courts to have that benefit revoked. This is a common situation in illegal departures from Cuba by sea, with many awaiting trial or parole attempting to escape the country this way.

Since January 2023, 114 return operations have been carried out from various countries in the region, repatriating a total of 4,607 Cubans.