Cuban Migrants Stranded in Nuevo Laredo May Be Granted Political Asylum Nora Gamez Torres - Miami Herald
go to original April 6, 2017

Cuban migrants whose efforts to reach the US have stalled at the border in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, are publicizing their plight with a twist on the Catholic procession called the Stations of the Cross. (Associated Press)

Mexico will allow U.S.-bound Cuban migrants who got stranded in the border city of Nuevo Laredo following the end of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy to apply for political asylum and legalize their status in the nation, the mayor of that city said earlier this week.

“We had a meeting where there were people from immigration... representatives from the federal government, the state,” Mayor Enrique Rivas Cuéllar told reporters. “I understand that the [Cuban migrants] are going to submit requests for political asylum and... be able to process their legal stay here in the country.”

The mayor — whose city is across the border from Laredo, Texas — said the Cuban migrants could remain in other areas of the country to await the result of their asylum requests. The director of the Tamaulipeco Institute for Migrants, José Martín Carmona, offered to provide help for Cubans who wanted move from the border city to other Mexican states, reported the newspaper El Mañana in Nuevo Laredo.

According to the Milenio newspaper, the measure would benefit more than 500 Cubans who are stranded in Nuevo Laredo But a local television station, citing a recent census, reported that some 1,300 Cubans arrived in that city after the Jan. 12 end to “wet foot, dry foot” and that only 700 had registered with the National Migration Institute, known by the Spanish acronymn INM. An INM official contacted by el Nuevo Herald offered no clarifications about the number of Cubans who could obtain political asylum.

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