One of the migrants who arrived in the United States by sea. AP photo
A Cuban undertook a journey through eight countries for more than a month. Another paid a small fortune to escape on a speedboat. A third decided to risk a dangerous journey aboard a rudimentary raft he had built himself.
The Cubans are leaving their country one of the largest exodus of the last four decadesrisking his life on a perilous journey to the United States by air, land and sea to escape political and economic problems.
The vast majority fly to Nicaragua as tourists and from there it slowly makes its way to the US border, usually to Texas or Arizona. A small minority bet on arrival by sea. Three men who survived the ordeal told The Associated Press about her.
Thousands of others share the same goal. Between January and July, the US authorities they had 155,000 meetings with Cubans who entered through the border with Mexico, more than six times more than in the same period in 2021. Furthermore, between October and August, the Coast Guard intercepted more than 4,600 Cubans, almost six times more than in all of 2020 .
The overwhelming majority are released with a warning to appear in immigration court or appear before immigration authorities.
This is the biggest escape of Cubans since the so-called Mariel crisis in 1980, when nearly 125,000 beams arrived in the United States over a period of six months.
The exodus is led by The worst economic crisis in Cuba in recent decades, due to the tightening of US sanctions and the impact of COVID-19.
Mass protests in July 2021 led to nearly 1,400 arrests and fears of political oppression that encouraged more Cubans to flee. Another of the triggers came in November, when Nicaragua stopped requiring visas from Cubans to promote tourism.
Two of the three men spoke to the AP on the condition that their names remain anonymous out of concern for the safety of relatives still living in Cuba. These are their stories:
It crossed eight countries and two rivers
Rolando José Cisneros Borroto was a street vendor in Camagüey, in the center of Cuba, but he said he was tired of suffering from hunger and need. Hoping to find a job that will allow him to support his family, He decided to leave his wife and three children.
Borroto, 42, has sold everything, including his home, furniture and television, e raised about $ 13,000 to pay for their passage to the United States. His family lived in another house.
After taking six flights, he arrived in Nicaragua in June. From there he traveled overland to Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.
He crossed two rivers on a floating tirehe walked in the mountains and along the highways, he drove buses, cars and motorcycles.
To hide from the Mexican police, he spent days drinking river water and only eating grass in the bush. Eventually it crossed the United States via Texas. and turned himself in to the border police.
He was released after three days of detention and now lives in Algona, Iowa, where a cousin offered him room and board. His odyssey lasted 36 days.
“I never thought it would take so much work to get there,” said Borroto, who has been arrested three times in Cuba for selling garlic on the street. he prefers to die on the road before staying in Cuba“.
He protested and fled by boat
Another 35-year-old Cuban participated in the massive protests in July 2021, when thousands of people took to the streets demanding food and even a change of government. He was tried on charges of public disorder and contempt and released after 30 days in prison. Fled in February one month before being sentenced to five years in prison.
Since his trial wasn’t over, air travel was ruled out – they would stop him at the airport when they saw his passport. A raft crossing was very dangerous.
“The (fast) boat was the only way out, there was no other way.”the man said in an interview at the Miami office of his attorney, Wilfredo Allen. He left the island almost secretly, without saying anything to his five-year-old daughter. Only his wife, his mother and a brother knew he was going away.
He was unemployed and asked his father, who lives in Texas, to help him paying about $ 15,000 to the smugglers They were giving him instructions on what to do over the phone.
Two days before the crossing they asked him to travel about 400 kilometers to Ciego de Avila, a town in the center of the island. From there a bus took him along with 30 other people and took them about 100 kilometers to the keys of Cuba, where did the motorboat depart from. Among the migrants were a pregnant woman shortly after giving birth and a seven-year-old child.
They went through the Bahamas and in total it was 12 hours of travel until they arrived at dawn somewhere unknown in the Florida Keys. The boat stopped in a mangrove swamp, about 50 meters from the coast. Then, already on the ground, they walked for about a kilometer until several cars picked them up on a highway. A Cuban friend looked for him from a house he was taken to, he recalled.
A rudimentary raft
Cubans who cannot pay between $ 10,000 and $ 15,000 to pay for a plane trip to Nicaragua and follow it overland, or to pay for a speedboat, sometimes they build their own rafts out of pipes and wood.
Among them is a 37-year-old man who worked temporarily in construction and fishing. Unable to pay a smuggler, he built a raft out of three meter long aluminum tubes. In May 2021 sailed for 22 hours with three friends up to the Florida Keys.
“The first thing you think about is going out, either we all starve little by little, or we try” said the man who took about six months to secretly build the boat. “I knew I could die in the water, but I had to take the risk.”
He built it secretly, with money that he saved day by day, looking after himself even to spend the minimum on food. For months he kept the raft hidden between a mountain and mangroveswhere he went every day to make it.
In order not to arouse suspicion, he bought the engine – which allowed him to advance at about 10 kilometers per hour – on the same day of the trip.
For fear of being discovered, no one knew about the journey except his three companions, his mother and his wife. Much less the date. His colleagues found out only a few hours before starting the journey.
They rowed out late at night from a fishing port in Playa Baracoa, west of Havana, he said in a lengthy interview with Allen’s office. They didn’t have GPS and they oriented themselves looking at the stars.
A full day passed and as night fell they saw the entrance buoys to an island in South Florida. They approached the coast, walked and met people. “At least we’re alive”he thought, but they realized that someone was calling the authorities to report them and they immediately ran to the raft and set off again to sea, fearing to be detained and deported to Cuba.
They waited in the water for a while until they approached Key West. Without knowing it, they arrived at a place where a group of Cuban tourists were taking photos. They helped them with the move to Miami. The man called his wife to tell her he had arrived safe and sound and asked her to tell her in-laws that she was returning home to Miami.
He is now in asylum procedure, hoping to be able to bring his wife and three teenage daughters.
AP Agency
PB
Gisela Salomone
Source: Clarin
