The Biden administration sent its first deportation flight to Cuba Monday, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Cuba agreed “to take no retaliatory action” against the U.S. against the deportees, the DHS spokesperson said. The last time such a flight took place was in December 2020 before the pandemic largely suspended such removals.
“On April 24, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resumed normal removals processing for Cuban nationals who have received final orders of removal,” the DHS spokesperson told the DCNF. “This process under Title 8 immigration authorities integrates rigorous safeguards to avoid refoulement of individuals who may face persecution in their country of origin.”
The administration used the latest flight to begin deportations of Cubans with “final orders of removal,” the DHS spokesperson said.
The move comes just weeks before Title 42, a Trump-era expulsion policy for certain nationalities, including Cubans, ends May 11.
First return flight to Cuba since Dec 2020. https://t.co/a8Ex6ZGNR6 pic.twitter.com/R2cYyIUi7w
— Thcartwright (@thcartwright) April 24, 2023
The number of Cuban migrants crossing the Southern border illegally has increased during Biden’s tenure. Border Patrol recorded more than 220,000 migrant encounters of Cubans in fiscal year 2022 and more than 112,000 between October 2022 and March 2023, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.
The numbers are up from fiscal year 2021, when Border Patrol recorded roughly 38,000 migrant encounters of Cubans and fiscal year 2020 when agents encountered more than 9,800, according to CBP data.
Cuba agreed to accept deportations in November 2022, according to Reuters. Previous deportation flights to the country were halted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A longstanding migrant agreement brokered under the Obama administration with Cuba and the U.S. dictates that the communist country must accept deportees that U.S. authorities are returning, according to Reuters.
The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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