U.S. authorities deported another 34 irregular Cuban migrants by air on Thursday.
The group of returnees (31 men and three women) arrived in the country at José Martí International Airport in Havana.
According to the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), one of the Cubans was detained upon arrival and is currently under investigation "for being a suspected perpetrator of a criminal act prior to leaving the country."
With this new flight, a total of 1,200 Cubans have been deported so far in 2024, returned through 82 repatriation operations from various countries in the region, which include, in addition to the United States, the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic.
This figure provided by the MININT refers to the calendar year (from January to December) and not to the fiscal year in which data is recorded in the United States, which begins on October 1st.
This was the first flight conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the newly begun fiscal year 2025.
The latest returns are of migrants with deportation orders, including those who entered illegally across the border, as well as rafters who successfully make it to land.
With this operation, the Biden administration has returned 912 Cubans on 19 flights since airborne deportations to Cuba resumed in April 2023, according to ICE figures compiled by Café Fuerte.
In September, a plane from the United States brought 62 Cuban migrants (seven women and 55 men) to Havana. Eight of them had left illegally by sea. The rest traveled legally by air and then commenced an irregular journey to reach the border.
Last month, the Cuban government received a total of 48 deported Cubans (43 men and five women) on a flight from the United States.
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