Three young Cubans traveling to the United States on humanitarian parole from Tapachula were detained by immigration authorities while on a layover in Mexico City.
Yida, Dachel and Amehd flew Aeroméxico airlines from Tapachula Airport to Mexico City on Thursday, Feb. 16, where they planned a nine-hour layover before continuing to the United States.
However, it was while in the Mexican capital that she and other travelers of Cuban descent were unable to take the flight to the United States, despite having the travel authorization issued by the United States government in case of parole, as they denounced. Relatives of two of the young people in statements to Telemundo 51.
According to a testimony from Miami by Carmen Sardiñas, mother of Dachel Cué Sardiñas, one of the young women affected, they went through immigration in Tapachula, they checked all their papers. They saw that everything was fine, that they were in the system and could fly.”
The woman added that once they arrived in Mexico City, immigration authorities were waiting for them.
“They sent all Cubans in line to ask for their passports. There were also two Venezuelans,” says Sardiñas, who knew about the incident in real time because her daughter had told her over the phone what was going on. Yida did the same with her parents in Cuba.
“She calls me and says, ‘Dad, we’re being held, they’ve stopped us. Immigration stopped all the Cubans coming with the flight,'” Carlos Hernández, Yida’s father, said of the island.
“Apparently the Immigration tells them they don’t know ‘the parole’, that they don’t know what sponsorship is, or a flight permit, or whatever, that they were in Mexico illegally,” Hernández added.
According to family statements, the three youths and other Cubans were put in a vehicle and taken to the Las Agujas immigration station, in the southeast of the Mexican capital.
In addition to the travel permits issued by the United States government, at least one of the young women would also have a humanitarian visa issued by Mexico valid for one year.
“They say there are people who have been locked up for a month and a half, young boys who have their things and who have not been let out. That they have been there for a month and a half, and that they paid lawyers, took money from them and there they are,” Dachel Cué’s mother complained.
The aforementioned media outlet unsuccessfully attempted to contact Mexico’s National Immigration Institute (INM) to find out its position on the incident.
While the numbers are not broken down by nationality, the US Embassy in Havana reported this weekend that 11,637 people, residents of Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, have benefited from the humanitarian parole program the Joe Biden administration has approved since January to halt migration crisis.
The diplomatic entity indicated that the process “works and works well” while asking people who want to sign up for the program not to be misled by smugglers who insist on illegally crossing the border, something that they warned that will end in eviction.
The program aims to provide about 30,000 visas per month to people from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, who can obtain a two-year residence permit.
Opponents of the program from the United States confirm that there is no legislation approved by Congress that would allow its implementation. A lawsuit filed by 20 red states to shut down the program is pending in Texas federal court with the first hearing scheduled for April 25.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio is one of the politicians who has most denounced the humanitarian parole program, claiming that the arrival of a huge number of civilians is a price the United States cannot bear.
Meanwhile, offers from “sponsors” asking up to $ 10,000 to interested parties are also increasing on social networks. Since the program came into effect, several complaints of fraud have been received.
