Cuba expects to resume US deportation flights this month

BETHESDA, Maryland. (AP):

Cuba plans to resume accepting deportation flights from The United States this month, a Cuban official said, echoing US concerns about the highest levels of Cuban migration in six decades.

Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, said flights are expected before the US ends coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions on asylum on May 11, which is widely projected to increase the number of people seeking entry to the US at the US-Mexico border.

The diplomat spoke in an interview with The Associated Press at the Cuban ambassador’s residence outside Washington after what he called “a productive meeting” with US Department of Homeland Security officials to discuss migration.

“We have a lot of common understanding, both parties, The United States and Cuba, about the nature of the problem,” he said.

Fernandez de Cossio said there was no agreement on the frequency of flights, which will depend on US and Cuban capacity. But he said there was no reason they can’t return to pre-pandemic levels of about twice a month. The last flight was in December 2020.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Cubans were stopped nearly 43,000 times at the US border with Mexico in December, becoming one of the largest nationalities entering The United States. Numbers plummeted in January after President Joe Biden’s administration announced that Cubans could fly to the US if they applied online and had a financial sponsor and that they would be expelled back to Mexico if they crossed the border illegally.

“We’re going to see if we can get one in the coming weeks and then to make that regular so that people can be easily removed, not to Mexico but directly to Cuba,” Fernandez de Cossio said late Thursday.

Fernandez de Cassio said the changes announced in January under which people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela can apply for humanitarian parole to go to the US have been successful in reducing the numbers of Cubans trying to cross the US-Mexico border. But he cautioned that it wasn’t a long-term fix. “It would be irresponsible for us or naive to think that this will be sustainable in the long term because there will always be a limit on the amount of visas,” he said.