Cuban migrants represent 20% of the foreign population in Uruguay

Cubans represent 20 percent of the migrant population in Uruguay, reveal theresults of the 2023 Census carried out by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) in that South American nation.

In the country, of 3,444,263 registered inhabitants, there is a migrant population headed by Venezuelans (27%), Argentines (22%) andCubans (20%).

The day before, when asked about thesedata, the president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, stated that Venezuelan and Cuban migrants come to his country because they have no other choice, since they suffer from theconsequences of living in countries with totalitarian regimes.

"There are two types of migration, voluntary and mandatory. Many people from Venezuela and Cuba came to our country and not because they wanted to, in fact, they miss it like crazy, I find them everywhere, a while ago I found myself Cuban, but they came because they had no other choice," he said.

Regarding "migration by decision," he said that this occurs "not because they expel you, or throw you out, or because they do not have freedom, not because you cannot eat," but for reasons ofopportunities, and that Uruguay welcomed everyone with open arms.

Lacalle Pou has supported the Cuban people in different international spaces and has even held strong discussions with President Miguel Díaz-Canel in multinational bodies in defense of the island's political prisoners.

"A president who does know and understands Latin America. For telling the truth, for going to the root of the problems from which we fled into exile "Thank you Lacalle". The terror of the dictatorships of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela," he published in Twitter Internet user Luis Estrada, who published the video of the Uruguayan president on his X profile.

Shortly after the July 11 protests in Cuba, the Uruguayan was one of the first Latin American presidents to react.

"The Cuban people are demonstrating courage worthy of praise," he stated on July 12 at a press conference; and added that "Cuba is a dictatorship that obviously does not respect human rights."

The positioning ofpresident Uruguay Regarding the condemnation of the dictatorships in the region, he has been marked since he won the presidency in 2019 and decided not to invite Miguel Díaz-Canel, Daniel Ortega or Nicolás Maduro to his inauguration, held in March 2020, this despite maintaining diplomatic relations with those countries.

However, in 2022 Uruguay denied asylum to 85% of Cuban applicants. Despite the new immigration obstacles, in May of this year the Uruguayan government admitted that "it has no intention of deporting undocumented Cubans."