Three Cuban citizens —two men and one woman— were detained on Saturday by agents of the National Institute of Migration (INM) during a check at the checkpoint located under the Teya bridge, along the Mérida-Cancún federal highway, in the municipality of Kanasín, Yucatán.
Upon requesting their documentation, the three migrants were unable to prove their legal presence in Mexican territory, so they were transferred to the INM offices in Mérida to determine their situation and the corresponding procedures.
In the operation, members of the Secretaría de Marina participated through the Ninth Naval Zone, providing security for the immigration personnel, as well as authorities from all three levels of government.
The arrest occurred just days after two Colombian citizens, aged 33 and 48, were intercepted at the same inspection point.
The case is set against a backdrop of intense Cuban migratory activity in the Yucatán Peninsula: on August 20, the Semar rescued 16 Cuban rafters —12 adults and four minors— who were adrift northeast of Progreso, within the jurisdiction of that same Ninth Naval Zone.
That vessel had departed from Pinar del Río on August 11 and had been missing for days before being located.
The Teya Bridge, on Federal Highway 180, is one of the most active migration control points in the state, where the INM operates periodically with support from the Navy, the National Guard, and other federal and state agencies.
Yucatán has become one of the main corridors for irregular Cuban migration in Mexico, both by sea—through rafters crossing the Yucatán Channel—and by land routes.
Recent events in the region are numerous: in March 2025, the Navy intercepted 14 Cuban migrants near Progreso, and two Mexican citizens were made available to the Prosecutor's Office for alleged human trafficking; in May of the same year, eight Cuban rafters who shipwrecked arrived in El Cuyo, Tizimin, and were handed over to the INM in Mérida.
At the regional level, the Cuban migration flow to Mexico has intensified in 2025 and 2026, exacerbated by deportations from the United States: according to a report by Human Rights Watch published in May 2026, Washington deported 4,353 Cubans to Mexico between January 2025 and March 2026, making them the most numerous nationality among those deported to third countries, out of a total of 12,977 cases recorded during that period.
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