Now that Humanitarian Parole has been cancelled
“What we do know is that there is no way back for Cuba,” says Emilio, who left the island more than a year ago.
Por Sergio Castro Bibriesca (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – “It was heartbreaking to hear that he fulfilled the threat,” says Gabriela Hernández, director of Casa Tochan, a shelter for migrants in Mexico City, about the cancellation on January 20th of the CBP One mobile application, which allowed migrants of any nationality to enter the United States through Mexican “ports of entry.” In that same executive order, President Donald Trump cancelled the Humanitarian Parole Program, which allowed the arrival in the United States of 531,690 immigrants, including 110,240 Cubans in two years.
The cancellation disrupts the plans of thousands of applicants, who have been stranded in different Mexican states, mainly at border points, waiting for a new plan to continue their journey. For the migrants in Mexico City, “the first thing they had to do was cancel their flights to the border. They had planned to leave this week for their appointments,” says Hernández.
However, the hardest thing for those who hoped to enter US territory legally is to see their life plan change in the blink of an eye. “We tell the kids to stay calm. They lost a battle, but not the war. There were tears. It’s very sad to see a child cry, but it was more shocking to see adult men cry. You cry and then move on,” adds the director of the shelter, which has space for only 50 people but today serves more than 150, because, “thanks to the solidarity of many people,” they managed to rent three nearby apartments to accommodate more migrants.
This scene is replicated in the north, in Tijuana, on the border with San Diego: the shelters are full. There are 3,500 people stranded who would have requested the CBP One, and 10% already had an appointment to apply for asylum in the United States. This was reported on Monday by Jose Luis Perez Canchola, who was head of the Municipal Directorate of Migrant Attention until Tuesday morning. He was dismissed, he said, for demanding effective coordination of the three levels of government (federal, state and municipal) to address the migration crisis.
At the international crossing of El Chaparral, about 200 migrants who already had an appointment were transferred to a shelter, although on Tuesday, January 21, some returned to the crossing with more hope than certainty. Aylin, a Venezuelan migrant, told 14ymedio that the announcement took her by surprise. “We didn’t think that by the time we got here the appointments would be eliminated.” When she arrived at the Tijuana airport, the authorities asked her to show that she had an appointment. “They saw the application and it was working, but by the time we got here the appointments had already been cancelled.”
She arrived in Mexico from Maracaibo, on a trip that was quite an odyssey. First she went through Colombia. From there she left with a coyote and crossed the Darién jungle with her five-year-old daughter. After five days she reached Central America, but when she arrived in Guatemala, the authorities took all her money. Then she went to the Mexican border city of Tapachula and walked north with a caravan.
In Chiapas, the news fell like a bucket of cold water, although the migrants who remained in the area knew that the cancellation of the application was inevitable once Trump came to power. “We had been giving up CBP One for dead for weeks, but we were hoping that they would keep the appointments of those who were already registered since last year,” says Emilio, a 48-year-old Cuban from Alquízar, in Artemisa.
On Monday, the Mexican authorities alerted the migrants in Tapachula about the end of the program. According to the EFE agency, a federal agent announced with a megaphone that they would only attend to those who had appointments until January 30.
“As you know, as of today (Monday, January 20th) we still do not have enough reliable and truthful information to be able to attend to future dates. If the program continues, you will be informed through the National Institute of Migration,” explained the official.
Emilio said the cancellation of that migratory path opens the door to new questions, but he recognizes that “something will come out of this. What we are clear about is that there is no return to Cuba.”
Although he is the only one in his family who undertook the migratory route through Central America to Tapachula, in the Mexican town he has woven new bonds of friendship and collaboration. “There are eight of us who watch each other’s backs and help each other, and we have rented an apartment together,” he explains.
Emilio has been in Mexico for more than a year and has found a job as a welder, an occupation he learned in a Cuban company where he worked for a couple of years. “In Alquízar, the welding gave me some pesos and was my main source of income,” he recalls. Now his skills as a welder in a vehicle workshop allow him to “pay the rent, build a pigsty, and eat and send something to my family,” who suffered great damage to their home with the passage of Hurricane Rafael last November. “There is no more life there. I can’t go back, not even to take a break,” he says.
Despite the cancellation of the CBP One, through which he had an appointment for the end of January, Emilio is hopeful. “I think this will improve things for those of us in Mexico. Maybe they will give us credit to start our own business, facilities to settle here and some financial aid to bring part of our family,” he speculates.
The end of the CBP One application has left about 270,000 people stranded, according to an estimate by the American network CBS.
Launched by the Biden administration, the application started working in January 2023 and has helped more than 930,000 people to submit their cases.
Mexico faces two complex scenarios. On one hand, there are the thousands who have remained at the borders, many of them without resources, and on the other, there will also be those who will be deported by the new Trump Administration. On Tuesday, January 21, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum promised, at a press conference, that Mexico will provide “humanitarian care” to migrants from other countries, although we will seek to return them to their places of origin.”
“If possible, repatriation to their countries will be sought and, if not, reintegration into Mexico, but there are fewer cases,” she said. “If these people are on Mexican territory, we will take care of them for humanitarian reasons, but being foreigners, we will seek their return, within the framework of our immigration policy,” she stressed.
At the press conference, Sheinbaum was asked who would pay for those trips. To this question the president replied: “That’s what we’re going to talk about with the United States Government.”
Regarding the support for the population to stay in Mexico, the president, however, did not give further details. In this regard, the director of Casa Tochan questioned that there was talk of support for migrants, because there is a lack of resources, “especially when sometimes the Government itself does not even give a letter to asylum seekers because there is no paper.”
Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.
Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.
