HAVANA- In the month of June, 17,563 people arrived in the United States Cubans, an average of 585 each day, according to the latest statistical update from the Customs and Border Protection Office of USA (CBP in English).
Since the beginning of the US fiscal year 2024 in October 2023, June has been the month with the fewest Cuban arrivals. The data published by the CBP resumes a downward trend in migrant arrivals from the Island, which had been interrupted in May.
Last month, CBP officers assisted some 116 unaccompanied Cuban minors. In the past nine months, CBP has detained 1,134 Cuban children and adolescents traveling without their legal guardians. According to migration expert Loraine Morales, she explained the consequences and dangers that these minors must face during their migration routes.
Consequences
“The journeys are generally very dangerous (…) they are permeated by human trafficking and organized crime run by drug cartels. Since minors are a more vulnerable group, these risks are increased and can expose children to organ trafficking or very strong contexts of violence. Migrant children can suffer sexual abuse, precarious living conditions, overcrowding, arbitrary detentions (…) also the fact that a minor is detained and returned to his country restarts the migratory cycle and prolongs the problem,” said the specialist resident in Mexico, Loraine Morales.
A total of 180,925 Cubans have arrived in the US between October 2023 and June 2024, representing a monthly average of 20,102. If this trend continues, more than 241,000 Cuban arrivals would be recorded in the current fiscal year.
The overall count of Cuban migrants arriving in the US in the current migration crisis, which began in December 2021, amounts to 593,112.
Cubans began arriving en masse at the U.S.-Mexico border when Nicaragua suspended visa requirements in late November 2021. At that time, a migration route was established that began with flights to Managua and continued through Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.
The Mexican National Migration Institute reported that its government authorized the stay and delivery of the respective immigration documentation to 1,742,365 foreigners. In the first six months of 2024, 8,833 Cubans requested asylum in Mexico, according to data published by the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR).
Some Cubans even reach Mexico by sea. Last weekend, two Cuban rafters were rescued in the territorial waters of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.
The most common sea route used by Cubans is to cross the Florida Straits to reach the United States. Although most people who try are intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard, some succeed. The head of the Miami sector of the U.S. Border Patrol reported on July 1 that a group of 15 Cuban migrants arrived in the Florida Keys. “They arrived in a homemade boat. They will be processed “for the deportation process,” the official said on the social network X.
The stampede of Cubans in recent years has caused a considerable decrease in the island’s population. According to an independent demographic study by Cuban economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos, Cuba’s current population is estimated at 8.62 million people.
Source: With information from Diario de Cuba
