Mexico agreed on Monday to deport Cubans who sneak illegally through Mexican territory to reach the US, a step toward cutting off an increasingly violent and heavily used human trafficking route.
Signed by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa, the agreement also criticized US policy that generally allows Cubans who reach US territory to stay, while turning back most caught at sea.
It takes effect in one month.
Cuban migrants in recent years have increasingly headed for Mexico — often to the coast near Cancun — then overland to Texas because it has become so hard to dodge the US Coast Guard and reach Florida to qualify for US residency.
The Department of Homeland Security said 11,126 used the Mexico route last year, compared with just 1,055 who landed in the Miami area.
Before Monday, Mexico rarely sent back Cubans caught entering the country illegally. Many were held for a time, then were given 30-day transit visas to continue on to Texas, where Cubans present only identity documents and undergo medical and background checks before being welcomed to the US.
Under the new agreement, Mexico agreed to deport Cubans found illegally in Mexico — both those who arrive from their native island by boat and those who come up through Central America.
Both countries agreed to protect the human rights of migrants, but it wasn’t clear whether Mexico could give asylum to Cubans who claim political persecution back home. The agreement also allows Cuba to reserve the right to deny entry to anyone it sees as a security risk.
Perez Roque said the agreement would lead to “the immense majority of Cubans being repatriated.”
Approximately 2,000 Cubans are being held at Mexican immigration detention centers.
“I am sure that this memorandum of understanding is going to significantly reduce attempts to use Mexico as a route to getting to the United States,” he said.
But Andy Gomez, a senior fellow and assistant provost at University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies, said stopping the wave of migrants coming through Mexico would be difficult because smugglers often pay off Mexican authorities.
Even if the smuggling route through Mexico is successfully cut off, Gomez predicted that Cuban migrants would land in the Florida Panhandle, northeastern Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS