Five years after the closure of their consulate in Havana, the United States will once again grant visas to Cubans, in a context of strong migratory tension.
Le Monde
The United States Embassy in Cuba announced on Wednesday the “total resumption” of the deliverance of visas from 2023, after almost five years of interruption. This announcement comes as the island is experiencing an unprecedented migratory exodus and that it is going through its worst economic crisis in thirty years, under the combined effects of the consequences of the pandemic and the strengthening of the United States sanctions.
“At the beginning of 2023, the United States Embassy in Havana will completely revive the issuance of visas for emigrants, a first since 2017,” diplomatic representation said in a statement. Closed since 2017 due to supposed “acoustic attacks” that caused health problems in diplomats, the American consulate had taken up the deliverance of visas in May, but in a limited manner.
Since the Consulate’s closure, obtaining a visa for the United States had become an obstacle course for Cubans, with the obligation to go through a third country, at its expense, to make its request. For the American embassy, the complete resumption of the deliverance of visas must make it possible to “facilitate a safe, orderly, human and regular migration”.
illegal immigration Record
Number of Cubans seek to emigrate at all costs, some by the sea, but the majority try to rally the United States by land, via Central America. According to American border police, 198,000 Cubans have entered the United States in the past eleven months, a record – the two previous migratory crises had seen 100,000 Cubans flee in 1980 and 45,000 others in 1994.
About 5,700 Cubans were also intercepted at sea between October 2021 and September by the American Coast Guard, while they were trying to cross the Strait of Florida, which separates the two countries.
For the American embassy, the total resumption of the issuance of visas and the revival, in August, of a family reunification program “constitute an important effort to respect” the commitment of the United States to grant ” A minimum of 20,000 “annual visas to Cubans, under bilateral migratory agreements signed in the 1990s.
In May, Havana and Washington resumed their annual discussions on the migratory issue, after a four-year suspension under the term of Donald Trump (2017-2021). Delegations from the two countries met in early September to “increase bilateral cooperation” in the fight against illegal emigration, according to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior.