Text: Editorial Cuba Noticias 360
Photo: Shutterstock
The latest census by Uruguay’s National Statistics Institute (INE) showed that Cubans make up 20 percent of the territory’s migrant population, behind only Venezuelans and Argentinians.
In this sense, among the 3,444,263 inhabitants of the census there is a migrant population of Venezuelans with 27%, Argentinians with 22% and Cubans with the aforementioned 20%.
Likewise, the President of Uruguay himself, Luis Lacalle Pou, said: “There are two types of migration: voluntary and compulsory.” Many people from Venezuela and Cuba came to our country and not because they wanted to, but they miss it like crazy , I meet them everywhere, some time ago I met a Cuban woman, but they came because they had no other choice.
Regarding “migration by choice,” he explained that it “evolves not because they expel you or throw you out, or because you don’t have freedom, not because you can’t eat,” but because of problems of opportunity.
Lacalle Pou takes a strong stance against the Cuban government. He has confronted Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on various international stages and has particularly advocated for the defense of the island’s political prisoners.
Just a day after the July 11 protests in Cuba, this president became one of the first Latin American leaders to write: “The Cuban people are showing commendable courage.”
Since winning the presidency in 2019 and choosing not to invite Miguel Díaz-Canel, Daniel Ortega or Nicolás Maduro to his inauguration in March 2020, he has expressed his attitude towards these left-wing governments, despite having diplomatic relations with them countries.
However, it is striking that Uruguay denied asylum to 85% of Cuban applicants in 2022, despite that government making it clear in May of this year that it “has no intention of deporting undocumented Cubans.”