In midst of historic wave of migration to U.S., deportation flights to Cuba will resume

Cuba has agreed to begin accepting deportations from the United States, two U.S. officials said, in what they described as the resumption of decades-long migration agreements between the two countries amid a historic exodus from the island.

No deportation flights have departed from the United States yet, the officials said. But the development comes as the U.S. State Department confirms that the two governments met in Havana Tuesday to discuss the U.S.-Cuba Migration Accords.

In a press release, the federal agency said U.S. officials had talked about “areas of successful cooperation in migration” and “obstacles” to the agreements. They also brought up the renewal of consular services “to include visa and American citizen services” at its embassy in the island’s capital.

“Ensuring safe, regular, and humane migration between Cuba and the United States remains a mutual interest of both countries,” the department said.

Last week, Biden officials also went to Cuba’s capital to discuss consular services and the recent restart of a program that had been paralyzed since the Trump administration that reunites Cubans on the island with relatives in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of U.S. immigration agencies, declined to comment about the deportation flights.

Reuters first reported the resumption of deportation flights to Cuba, saying the federal government had detained about a dozen migrants who had failed a primary asylum screening at the U.S.-Mexico border. Cuba stopped receiving repatriation flights, which the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operate, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic froze international travel in 2020. In April 2022, the U.S. State Department and its Cuban counterpart met to discuss the U.S.-Cuba Migration accords for the first time since 2018.

The bilateral pacts date to the 1980s and ‘90s, responding to the historic waves of rafters who left Cuba for Florida. The latest agreement — announced at the tail end of Barack Obama’s administration in 2017 — ended “wet foot, dry foot,” a Clinton-era practice that allowed Cubans who reached U.S. soil to stay while turning back migrants stopped at sea.

Both countries have previously accused each other of not following the agreements in full. In April, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the accords had been “discontinued.” That same month, ICE told the Miami Herald that Cuba had not taken deportees for more than six months. Meanwhile, Cuban officials have said the U.S. had slowed to a trickle the issuing of 20,000 immigration visas it was supposed to offer annually to Cuban nationals.

READ MORE: Migration talks an example of ‘constructive’ engagement with Cuba, State Department says

A record number of Cubans has kept traveling to the United States since.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded nearly 225,000 encounters with Cuban nationals in fiscal year 2022, which ended on Sept 30. In comparison, the agency saw 39,303 encounters in all of fiscal year 2021.

During that same period, the Coast Guard intercepted 6,182 Cuban rafters at sea. Since Oct. 1, the agency has already intercepted 1,374 migrants from the Caribbean country trying to board rickety boats. It has kept sending rafters intercepted at sea back to Cuba despite the pause in deportation flights.

The development in Cuban deportation flights also follows the detention of a group of recently arrived Cuban men at ICE’s Miramar offices last month. The immigration officials told them they would be sent back to Cuba.

From a detention facility in Broward, the migrants told the Miami Herald their stories. Many said they had come to the U.S. fleeing political persecution and detained during the Trump administration. They had been freed in the first days of the Biden administration with rejected asylum claims and final deportation orders. They were ordered to check in with immigration authorities.

ICE freed the Cuban migrants days after it took them into custody. Family members, activists and local politicians had by then spent days publicly demanding their release through social media and protests. But the episode left the migrants wondering why they were detained in the first place. It also shook other recently arrived, undocumented Cubans with final deportation orders who fear they will be sent back.

Shalyn Fluharty, the executive director of Americans for Immigrant Justice, told the Herald that the resumption of deportations to Cuba was “not a surprise” after the recent detentions in South Florida.

“They rounded up people with no criminal history, who have work permits, family in the United States, who have complied with every single requirement,” she said.

Fluharty said that the immigration policies and living conditions Cubans and other immigrants face at the U.S.-Mexico border to reach the United States do not allow them to fairly seek asylum. She pointed to the situation at the border as a possible reason some Cubans make dangerous journeys on makeshift boats to reach South Florida shores.

“We all want to think our immigration system is fair and just,” she said, “but when it doesn’t hold the values of our American society, those deportations aren’t just.”