Photo: Alex Brandon/AP/Picture Alliance / Deutsche Welle
Cuba demanded that the United States comply with the bilateral agreements on migration in its “integrality and not selectively”, at a meeting this Thursday in Washington, the island’s Foreign Ministry reported.
“Compliance with the bilateral Migration Agreements and the mutual commitment to guarantee regular, safe and orderly migration was reviewed,” said a statement from Havana published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minrex).
The talks, led by the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the US Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Emily Mendrala, represent the first high-level meeting between the two governments since Joe Biden arrived at the White House.
The Cuban side “reiterated its concern about the US government measures they stimulate migration, prevent legal and orderly migration, and generate the socioeconomic conditions that incite emigration”, the article notes.
Likewise, the The Cuban delegation told the US representation that “these measures, including those associated with the extreme strengthening of the economic blockade (from the US to the island), cause loss of life and the commission of crimes of smuggling of migrants, migratory fraud and human trafficking”.
In this sense, the Cuban delegation considered that this situation “affects both countries and the region” of Central America and United States as a whole.
Visas and orderly migration
Cuba also insisted at the meeting on “the obligation of the Government of the United States to guarantee the issuance in Havana of no less than 16,000 annual visas to Cubans” to emigrate to the North American country or, as agreed in 2017 and pointed out that this commitment “is being breached” since then.
On the other hand, Cuba considered that “there is no justification to keep the consular service in Cuba interrupted” and force the applicant to emigrate, to travel to Guyana so that his application (for a visa ) be prosecuted”.
The Cuban delegation also said that the United States “must stop hindering and violating the rights of Cubans to travel to third parties countries of the area”.
The departure of Cubans, mainly to the United States, has increased significantly in recent months, something that experts link in the first place with the serious economic crisis that the island is going through.
According to data from the US immigration authorities, between October and February some 47,331 Cuban migrants, after a record number of 16,657.
Havana, which advocates orderly, legal migration and controlled, accuses Washington of promoting irregular flows to the United States and of breaching bilateral agreements on migration.
The Cuban government also attributes the increase in migration to the validity of the Cuban Adjustment Law of 1966, which allows Cubans to apply for permanent residence in the United States for one year and one day to stay in that country.
mg (efe, Foreign Ministry of Cuba