More than 10,000 Cubans remain stranded in Tapachula without any support from their government, as reported by Diario del Sur the mayor of that city, Yamil Melgar Bravo, who revealed that the municipality has attempted to contact the Cuban embassy in Mexico without receiving a response.
The complaint was made during the International Strategic Dialogue on Coexistence and Mobility, held in Tapachula, where Melgar Bravo pointed out that there is no Cuban consulate in the city nor direct communication with the island's diplomatic representation, despite the fact that the presence of Cuban migrants in the area has continued to grow.
According to authorities and recent reports, the presence of Cuban migrants in Tapachula has increased in recent months, including due to the arrival of individuals deported from the United States, which has heightened pressure in the city.
The official contrasted the attitude of the Cuban regime with that of other countries. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Haiti maintain an active consular presence and close ties with their migrants in Tapachula, while Cuba simply does not respond.
The crisis has worsened since February 2026, when two to three weekly flights began arriving with Cubans deported from the United States directly to Chiapas, as a result of the stricter immigration policies of the Trump administration.
Many of these deportees had been living in the United States for decades and now find themselves in a threefold limbo: they cannot return to Cuba, they have no legal status in Mexico, and they cannot go back to the United States.
A federal judge in Boston, William G. Young, questioned in March the legality of an "unwritten agreement" under which the Department of Homeland Security deported approximately 6,000 Cubans to Mexico, but this has not stopped the flights nor improved the situation for those who are already stranded.
Cuban migrants in Tapachula have two formal options. One is to apply for asylum with the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, and the other is to regularize their status through the National Migration Institute. However, both institutions are overwhelmed, and the processes can take over a year.
From almost 150,000 applications registered between October 2024 and June 2025, less than 3% received effective protection, which highlights the extent of the institutional collapse.
In April, municipal officials in Tapachula attacked Cuban migrants, an incident that highlighted the increasing tension in a city that, according to activist estimates, has up to 60,000 stranded migrants in the area.
Earlier, in March, about 500 migrants had marched in Tapachula to denounce precisely the bureaucratic sluggishness that keeps them trapped without a clear future.
The situation of the Cubans deported to Mexico after living decades in the U.S. illustrates the systematic neglect of the regime: individuals who fled the dictatorship, built their lives in another country, and now have nowhere to go while Havana remains silent.
"Many migrants, faced with the slow pace of procedures, choose to abandon the processes and continue their journey without documentation in caravans, placing themselves in a situation of high vulnerability," warned Melgar Bravo, summarizing with that phrase the fate that awaits thousands of Cubans whom the regime prefers to ignore.
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