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.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS