It’s no secret that the southern border is porous, and that Mexicans have invaded the U.S. like a plague. And with Obama’s open door policy with Syrian Refugees, it seems the country will soon burst with immigrants. Now there’s another flood of illegals, and they’re coming from Cuba.
One recent evening 200 Cubans milled about the grounds of an immigration detention center in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula, smoking cigarettes and checking cell phone messages. They waited all day before agents started calling out names.
Mike Hernández Aroche, 28, of Cienfuegos, Cuba, was one of the first. Beaming he showed off the piece of paper he received through the grate of the fence.
“I’ll be in Florida by Friday!” he shouted.
Last December’s announcement that the United States and Cuba would re-open diplomatic relations opened the floodgates on undocumented Cuban immigration. Many on the island fear the rapprochement will soon lead to changes in the laws that currently allow those Cubans who reach US soil to stay.
The dangerous gamble of getting to Florida by boat means ever more Cubans are attempting to enter the US via Mexico, where they can also take advantage of “safe passage” visas handed out by the Mexican authorities. Seven out of ten Cubans now arrive in the US from Mexico, most frequently at Texas entry-points. Mexico has reported a threefold increase in immigration detentions of Cubans from 2014 to 2015.
“The Cuban government is in negotiations with the United States, and the Cuban Adjustment Law could change,” 46-year-old Rolando Yanes Fabrega laid out his concerns outside the main immigration post in Tapachula waiting to turn himself in to get a visa. “That’s why there’s this mass migration right now. The law could change as soon as next year.”
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