Cuban in Uruguay: "We are no longer a transit community"

The political refugeeJorge Valdes, founder of the organizationFree Cubans in Uruguay, assured that the Cuban community established in the South American country is no longer in transit, but is growing and developing increasingly integrated into society.

"Uruguay has been a favorite destination for Cubans for many years (...) AlreadyWe are not a transit community. and Uruguay is not a springboard, as is sometimes said, for Cubans," Valdés said in an interview for the programGood day on Channel 4 of Uruguayan television.

In his speech, the Cuban referred to theUrgent Consideration Law (LUC) and assured that it meant a very favorable change for the migrant community in Uruguay.

"Thanks to this regime, today (Cubans) have access to renting decent housing, facilitating their insertion and development in society," he said.

Valdés also referred to the number of political refugee application files that the Uruguayan government rejects, something, in his opinion, related to the way in which said files are managed.

''Arriving in a country fleeing a regime like Cuba's, and meeting a diplomatic representation of the same, conditions the story of the Cubans before the Refugee Commission,'' he explained.

This weekend the results of a journalistic investigation, published byMontevideo Portal where they point out that theRefugee Commission (CORE) denied in the first six months of 2022, some 89 refugee requests and 82 of them were made by Cubans.

From January to May, only three Cuban emigrants were recognized as refugees by the CORE in Uruguay. However, this migrant community has been growing for several years and more and more Cubans are choosing the country to settle and raise their families.

In the first two months of 2022 they enteredin Uruguay 1,454 Cubans, according to data from the National Directorate of Migration of the South American country.

The closure of the borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic implied a considerable reduction in the number of Cubans who emigrated to Uruguay in 2021, but the numbers rose again in January and February, amounting to more than half of the 2,886 counted in 2021. .

The Association of Free Cubans in Uruguay considers that the largest immigrant community in that country is Cuban, although there is no updated census on the number of its members. In 2019 there were more than 5,000 Cubans in the country.