| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2008 
Mexico Sends Cubans Home Under New Accord
 Julie Watson - Associated Press
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| | Illegal Cuban immigrants are loaded onto Mexican Navy patrol boats as they are sent in small groups to the naval base in Isla Mujeres in Mexico's caribbean coast Thursday Dec. 4, 2008. Mexico is preparing to send illegal Cuban migrants home for the first time under a new immigration accord, says a Mexican immigration official. (AP/Israel Leal) | |
Mexico City – Mexico sent home the first group of illegal Cuban migrants under a new accord aimed at cutting off an increasingly violent human-trafficking route to the United States, the government said Thursday.
The 41 migrants left the resort city of Cancun aboard a Mexican navy ship taking them back to Cuba, a statement from the navy and the Interior Department said.
Before Mexico signed the agreement with Cuba in October, authorities rarely sent migrants back to the communist island.
Until now, Cubans were detained briefly in Mexico, then given 10- to 30-day exit orders. That allowed them to continue on to Texas, where all that is required of Cuban migrants are identity documents and medical and background checks before they are welcomed to America.
As it became harder to dodge U.S. Coast Guard vessels and reach Florida by sea to qualify for U.S. residency, Cuban migrants in recent years have increasingly chosen Mexico — often heading to the coast near Cancun — as their route to the United States.
But Mexico has become frustrated with the migrations as violent traffickers increasingly got involved in moving them across the country. Several Cuban-Americans believed to be involved in smuggling have been killed in recent years in or around Cancun, about 120 miles (195 kilometers) southwest of Cuba.
In June, gunmen snatched 33 Cubans off a government bus headed to an immigration station in southern Mexico, possibly to extort money from them or their smugglers. Many of those migrants later turned up in the U.S.
Mexico now provides armed police escorts for all detained Cuban migrants.
Immigration authorities can still grant asylum on a case-by-case basis to migrants under the accord, which has no guarantee that those returned to Cuba will not face reprisals. Both countries can reserve the right to deny entry to anyone it sees as a security risk.
The agreement, signed by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa, also criticized the U.S. "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, which generally allows Cubans who touch U.S. soil to stay, while turning back most caught at sea.
The Department of Homeland Security said 11,126 Cuban migrants used the Mexico route last year, compared to just 1,055 who showed up in the Miami area.
Perez Roque said the agreement would lead to the majority of Cubans being repatriated. Approximately 2,000 Cubans are currently being held in Mexican immigration detention centers.
Associated Press writer Jorge Dominguez in Cancun, Mexico, contributed to this report. |
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