the Irregular entry of Cubans through the southern border of the United States reached a number of over 32,000 people in March, leaving the Biden administration with a dilemma of how to deal a migratory avalanche on the scale of the Mariel exodus of 1980.
Although the Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has not yet released official statistics on immigrant arrivals over the past month, the Washington Post newspaper announced that the number of Cubans has exceeded 32,000, twice that number heshe 16,550 were registered at the Mexican border crossings in February.
A CBP source told CiberCuba that the figures for March were high, but avoided confirming an exact number, arguing that the agency does not comment on unofficial versions and internal information due to guidelines.
In any case, the estimates published by the American newspaper and the partial behaviors collected in recent days on crossing the Mexican border place the flow of Cubans in a panorama of a migratory crisis comparable to other historical milestones.
When the potential figures for March are added to data on arrivals of Cubans at border crossings into Mexico during the last five months of fiscal year 2022, the figures are truly staggering:
- More than 78,752 Cuban immigrants entered the United States during the first half of this fiscal year.
- About 72,800 They entered after the opening of Cuba’s borders and the lifting of visas ordered by the Nicaraguan government on November 22nd.
- 107,000 They came after the rise of Joe Biden to the White House and the announcement of a more flexible immigration policy than that of the Donald Trump administrationnot counting other points of arrival by land and sea.
- More than 174,800 Cubans entered through this border strip after the abolition of the wet/dry foot policy between the financial years 2017 and the first half of 2022 (October 2021 to March 2022).
In fact, the panorama of Cuban immigration to the United States is currently reaching the level of the Mariel Exodus in 1980 (125,000) and far exceeds the figures of the 1994 rafting crisis (35,000).
In addition, there are data on the southern border about 700 Cubans who came through other border areas of the United States Territory during the first half of the fiscal year (FY2022) beginning October 1, and more than 1,200 attempting to reach US territory by seaaccording to combined Coast Guard and Border Patrol reports.
But there could be even bigger surprises when official records from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) emerge. CBP figures on processing immigrants of all nationalities at border crossings in March are expected to be available in about two weeks.
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