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The United States Government announced this Tuesday a new visa restriction policy for owners, executives, and senior officials of airline companies that carry out charter flights between Cuba and Nicaragua, widely used by migrants from the Island to make the route to the border. Southern US
The State Department explained in a statement that charter flight companies have been selling tickets at “extortion” prices to those who use Nicaragua as a route to access Mexico’s northern border. This trip is made by migrants who lack a legal basis to enter or remain on US soil and who often face deportation proceedings.
The newly announced penalty is part, according to the announcement, of a comprehensive approach to dealing with irregular migration. With this measure, the US Government imposes “visa restrictions under the Immigration and Nationality Law 212 (a)(3)(C) (ineligibility based on sanctioned activities) against owners, executives and/or senior officials of companies that They offer charter flights to Nicaragua.”
The decision is because charter flight organizers see migrants as a high source of income and put them and their families in danger. For this reason, the authorities point out that they are working in collaboration with the governments of the region and the private sector to try to eliminate what they define as “an exploitative practice.”
The decision is because charter flight organizers see migrants as a high source of income and put them and their families in danger.
The current US Administration urges Cubans and Haitians, along with other possible migrants, to resort to the safe and legal routes that are available to reach the United States. Washington emphasizes that it has promoted an expansion of these routes to access its territory. and that it will continue to sanction those who do not use them. The main consequence is the expulsion of these migrants to their countries of origin.
Last week, Eric Jacobstein, deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, assured The Voice of America that Washington was “analyzing consequences” against companies that carry out charter flights between Havana and Managua and was the second US official to express himself in these terms in a few days.
“We are aware of these reports of an increase in charter flights arriving in Nicaragua from several countries and believe that no one should profit from the desperation of vulnerable migrants,” Jacobstein said at the time.
Two weeks earlier, the Undersecretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Brian Nichols, offered very similar statements that cast doubt on whether the United States would finally decide to intervene in the exodus that Managua has facilitated to pressure the Biden Government.
Between 2021 and 2023, more than 425,000 Cubans arrived at the southern border of Mexico, on their way to the United States. The route through Nicaragua has facilitated the evasion of an even worse path, the one that involved crossing the Darién jungle, between Colombia and Panama, which many took in the previous migration crisis of 2015. (https://www.world-today-news.com/the-us-penalizes-flight-operators-that-facilitate-the-migration-of-cubans-through-nicaragua/)
