Deportation flights to Cuba have not yet resumed, DHS chief says during Miami visit
Despite an earlier announcement in November that Cuba had agreed to start taking back Cubans deported from the United States, deportation flights have yet to restart, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said during a visit to Miami on Monday.
Mayorkas said the deportation flights were part of the migration accords with Cuba that the Biden administration was working to restart, but did not explain why they have not resumed.
“What we are implementing are the migration accords,” he said. “We are building the capacity of our consular offices there to once again issue visas for individuals to arrive safely to the United States, yet another mechanism for people to arrive safely and in an orderly way to the United States. Similarly we are rebuilding the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program. One of the elements of the migration accords is to resume removal flights, which we haven’t yet done.”
Mayorkas’ visit to Miami included meetings with members of the Haitian- and Cuban-American communities to discuss a new parole program announced earlier this month that will allow up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans each month to legally enter and work in the U.S. for at least two years. The secretary reiterated that Cubans who use the parole program may be able to seek permanent residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act after a year and a day.
The parole program was announced amid record numbers of Cubans and other migrants reaching the U.S.-Mexico border and South Florida shores.
A round of detentions of Cuban migrants in late October stoked fears that the resumption of deportation flights was imminent. Some of the Cubans who spoke with the Herald had documents issued by immigration authorities stating they were being considered for deportation to Cuba. But after the news of their detention broke, they were eventually released.
In late December, Immigration and Customs Enforcement released several Cuban migrants who were detained and waiting to be deported to Cuba, after U.S. officials accidentally told Cuban authorities that some of them had sought asylum in the United States.
Last month, Cuban officials confirmed that they expected deportation flights to resume soon.
In January 2017, the Obama administration eliminated a special parole policy for Cubans known as “wet foot, dry foot.” In return, Cuban authorities agreed to take back Cubans who entered the United States and were ordered removed by U.S. immigration authorities. But the flights were suspended during the pandemic in 2020, and later Cuban authorities refused to accept any repatriation flights.
This story was originally published January 30, 2023 at 12:41 PM.