USA will seek to reactivate migratory agreements with Cuba that they were discontinued, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, said on Wednesday in the prelude to a high-level meeting between Washington and Havana.
“I am not going to anticipate the dialogue, but we have had migratory agreements with Cuba for many, many years. These are discontinued and we are going to explore the possibility of reactivating them,” said Mayorkas, who participated in a continental meeting in Panama City to address the causes of the growing irregular migration.
Although he did not specify which agreements are involved, Mayorkas He assured that the meeting, scheduled for April 21 in Washington, is part of the commitment of the United States to allow “a safe, humanitarian and orderly migration.”
The goal, said Mayorkas, is to prevent migrants “from jumping into the sea, because they are totally dangerous journeys.”
The meeting will take place at a time when Cuba It is experiencing massive emigration, in the midst of its worst economic crisis in almost three decades.
According to US data, from October 2021 to March 2022, more than 78,000 Cubans entered the country through the border with Mexico, a figure that doubles the number of nationals who left the island during the so-called “rafter crisis” for a month. in 1994.
Since Nicaragua eliminated the visa for Cubans in November, thousands of islanders have traveled to that country, an ally of Havana, on their way to USAwhere they can take advantage of a 1964 law that privileges the citizens of the island with residence in one year.
The round of immigration talks follows the announcement by the US embassy in March that it would begin issuing visas to Cubans in Havana.
After a four-year opening under the presidency of Barack Obamabilateral relations deteriorated with donald trumpwho reinforced the embargo, in force since 1962. Despite electoral promises, Biden has not reversed that situation.
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