INM Grants Residency But Denies Asylum to Cuban Migrants Stranded in Mexico Lisa Nikolau - Humanosphere
go to original April 11, 2017

Cubans waiting in Nuevo Laredo (todayonline.com)

The Mexican government has decided to grant residency permits to nearly 600 migrants from Cuba, where dismal economic prospects have forced thousands to seek new lives in countries without the means or will to take them.

Mexico’s National Institute of Immigration (INM) said that it has provided facilities for the migrants to be granted a status of stay in Mexico “for humanitarian reasons,” according to the Havana Times.

The INM said the permits will allow the migrants to work, but will not grant them refugee status or political asylum because “they do not face persecution of any kind.”

The stranded Cubans first entered Mexico through the town of Tapachula, which borders Guatemala, and traveled north to the U.S.-Mexico border town of Nuevo Laredo with the hope of entering the United States. The migrants became trapped, however, after the U.S. suspended a longstanding policy that allowed Cubans who arrived to its territory to legally reside in the country and obtain a fast track to residency.

The “wet foot, dry foot” policy was suspended under former U.S. President Barack Obama, who made controversial efforts restore diplomatic relations with the Castro regime. In anticipation of the policy’s suspension, more than 56,000 Cubans made it to the United States in 2016 – double the number the previous year.

Read the rest at Humanosphere

Related: Mexico's 'Little Haiti' Now Home to Thousands of Immigrants in Tijuana (PanAm Post)

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