Mexico resumes deportations to Cuba: First flight arrives with 138 migrants

A flight from Mexico with 138 migrants from the island arrived in Havana this Saturday in what represents the resumption of deportation flights from that country.

The Viva Aerobus airline flight landed at 11:55 a.m. with 95 male and 43 female migrants. the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) specified in a statement.

The deportation flights had been stopped since March 3.

“All of these people had left Cuba legally and joined irregular transit bound for the United States,” the statement reads.

In total, 4,539 have been deported to Cuba so far this year in 111 returns from different countries in the region.

Last week it was known that Mexico would ask Cuba and four other countries in the region to accept deportation flights for their nationals, as a way to alleviate a migration crisis that shows an increase in the number of people arriving daily at the Mexican border with the United States.

At the beginning of November, Mexico also reported that travelers in transit at the country's airports They should present a "visitor visa".

The measure not only affects Cubans who use a connecting flight to reach Nicaragua with a stopover in Mérida, but also irregular migrants from the island in Mexican territory who must take a flight that allows them to arrive by plane to their CBP One interviews. on the northern border.

In Mexico, thousands of Cubans are in an irregular situation as part of their migratory journey to the United States and are trying to flee the collapsed cities like Tapachula through illegal routes and at the mercy of human traffickers.