The Guatemalan Army and Police 58 Cuban immigrants were arrested this Monday traveling in three boats on a river bordering Honduras with the ultimate intention of reaching the United States.
Personnel from the National Defense Navy intercepted and arrested the three boats around 6:30 pm in the Dulce River, Izabal 50 Cubans and two Hondurans. In the same area captured the police eight other Cubans who were allegedly part of that group, the Guatemalan Migration Institute reported in a statement.
“The security forces implemented established protocols and took the people to the Corinto (Izabal) border post, where they were expelled from Guatemalan territory,” the statement said.
The Guatemalan Migration Institute said that the transfer of immigrants by sea was “a new mode of transport in the region” and that it did not know whether they intended to continue to the United States by that route or to make part of the crossing country.
According to a source at the Guatemalan Migration Institute told Reuters agency, from early 2021 to March 13, Guatemala expelled 84 Cubans from its territory because they did not have visas to stay in the country.
The Central American country plays a key role in the migratory route that thousands of Cubans are following through this region on their way to the United States, which has intensified at an alarming rate since Nicaragua announced it Visa exemption for Cubans last November.
Last February, irregular entry of Cubans across the United StatesMexico border set a record of 16,550 peoplemost for a month in more than two decades.
The Department of Customs and Border Protection said that in just five months of the current fiscal year 2022, which started in October, a total of 46,752 Cuban immigrants. The number of Cubans who crossed the southern border into the United States in February is surpassed only by Mexicans at 71,210 and Guatemalans at 18,175.
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