Mexico agreed on Monday to deport Cubans who sneak illegally through Mexican territory to reach the US, a step toward cutting off an increasingly violent and heavily used human trafficking route.
Signed by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa, the agreement also criticized US policy that generally allows Cubans who reach US territory to stay, while turning back most caught at sea.
It takes effect in one month.
Cuban migrants in recent years have increasingly headed for Mexico — often to the coast near Cancun — then overland to Texas because it has become so hard to dodge the US Coast Guard and reach Florida to qualify for US residency.
The Department of Homeland Security said 11,126 used the Mexico route last year, compared with just 1,055 who landed in the Miami area.
Before Monday, Mexico rarely sent back Cubans caught entering the country illegally. Many were held for a time, then were given 30-day transit visas to continue on to Texas, where Cubans present only identity documents and undergo medical and background checks before being welcomed to the US.
Under the new agreement, Mexico agreed to deport Cubans found illegally in Mexico — both those who arrive from their native island by boat and those who come up through Central America.
Both countries agreed to protect the human rights of migrants, but it wasn’t clear whether Mexico could give asylum to Cubans who claim political persecution back home. The agreement also allows Cuba to reserve the right to deny entry to anyone it sees as a security risk.
Perez Roque said the agreement would lead to “the immense majority of Cubans being repatriated.”
Approximately 2,000 Cubans are being held at Mexican immigration detention centers.
“I am sure that this memorandum of understanding is going to significantly reduce attempts to use Mexico as a route to getting to the United States,” he said.
But Andy Gomez, a senior fellow and assistant provost at University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies, said stopping the wave of migrants coming through Mexico would be difficult because smugglers often pay off Mexican authorities.
Even if the smuggling route through Mexico is successfully cut off, Gomez predicted that Cuban migrants would land in the Florida Panhandle, northeastern Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a US$1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China’s demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the APEC summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
IT’S A DEAL? Including the phrase ‘overlapping claims’ in a Chinese-Indonesian joint statement over the weekend puts Jakarta’s national interests at risk, critics say Indonesia yesterday said it does not recognize China’s claims over the South China Sea, despite signing a maritime development deal with Beijing, as some analysts warned the pact risked compromising its sovereign rights. Beijing has long clashed with Southeast Asian neighbors over the South China Sea, which it claims almost in its entirety, based on a “nine-dash line” on its maps that cuts into the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of several countries. Joint agreements with China in the strategic waterway have been sensitive for years, with some nations wary of deals they fear could be interpreted as legitimizing Beijing’s vast claims. In 2016,
RSS