written by Sofia Menchu
Tuesday December 29, 2015
Central American countries have agreed to a pilot program to start allowing thousands of Cuban migrants stranded in Costa Rica to continue onward to the United States from next month, governments in the region said on Monday.
The deal, reached between officials meeting in Guatemala City, will provide flights for an undisclosed number of Cubans to El Salvador, where they will then be ferried toward Mexico by bus, Costa Rica's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The program is due to begin during the first week in January, the governments of Guatemala and Mexico said.
Approximately 250 Cuban migrants will be flown to El Salvador initially, said Guatemalan Foreign Minister Carlos Morales.
Costa Rica's government, which stopped issuing transit visas to Cubans earlier this month, said providing shelter for the migrants has badly stretched local resources.
"The solution emerging is an absolute exception and only for those people who entered national territory legally," Costa Rica's foreign minister, Manuel Gonzalez, said.
It was not immediately clear how the migrants' travel will be paid for, but diplomats are expected to work out logistical details in upcoming meetings, the Mexican government said.
Mexico said the pilot program will be subject to revision.
Since mid-November, the number of Cuban migrants stuck in limbo inside Costa Rica's northern border with Nicaragua has grown steadily. An estimated 8,000 Cubans are now stuck there.
The flow of migrants from the Communist-ruled island has surged as the process of a detente between Washington and Havana, announced last December, stirs fears that preferential U.S. asylum rights for Cubans may soon end.
Migrants became stranded in Costa Rica after Nicaragua, which is a close ally of Cuba, shut its borders in November, saying that Costa Rica had sparked a "humanitarian crisis" after Costa Rica issued transit visas to more than 1,000 Cubans.
On Sunday, Pope Francis urged the region to resolve the "humanitarian drama" in Costa Rica quickly.
Officials from Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Mexico, Costa Rica and the International Organization for Migration took part in the talks, Guatemala said.
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Fox News, Latino
written by AP
Tuesday December 29, 2015
Central American nations have reached a deal to let the first of thousands of stranded Cuban migrants continue their journey north toward the United States next month, officials said Monday.
The humanitarian transfer will airlift an unspecified number of Cubans the first week of January from Costa Rica to El Salvador, from where they will continue by bus toward Mexico, Costa Rica's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Guatemalan government, which hosted a diplomatic meeting earlier in the day to consider the issue, described it as a "pilot" program and said a work group has been tasked with coordinating logistics.
The two governments did not immediately release further details, citing some nations' desire for discretion on what has become a diplomatic flashpoint between Costa Rica and neighboring Nicaragua.
The number of Cubans stranded in Costa Rica has reached at least 8,000 since Nicaragua closed its border to them weeks ago. The islanders say they are trying to reach the United States, where favorable migratory policies toward Cubans mean nearly all are allowed to stay and apply for residency.
Soooooo, they traveled southwest to Costa Rica to try to get to Nicaragua to then travel north through several countries to get to the United States? Look at the map I shared above. Look at it please. Florida, USA is right above Cuba.
On Sunday, Pope Francis called for their plight to be resolved.
Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez said the measure will be available only to Cubans who are already in Costa Rica. Ministry spokeswoman Melissa Duran told The Associated Press it will be up to the migrants to pay the costs of their travel, but did not give more specifics.
On Dec. 18, Costa Rica stopped issuing transit visas for Cuban migrants and announced that any who arrived after that without a visa would be deported.
Cuba has seen a spike in outward migration in the year since it and Washington announced they would re-establish diplomatic ties after more than five decades of open hostility. Many Cuban migrants say they chose now to emigrate out of fear that detente could bring about an end to the U.S. policies that benefit them — although U.S. officials say no change is in the works.
Cuba and its close ally Nicaragua argue that the U.S. policies toward Cubans encourage them to attempt dangerous migratory routes and cause a brain drain on the island.
Of course, the Marxist Communist Regimes would blame America that their people want to get the hell out of oppressed Communist rule and risk their lives to escape. So typical of Leftist, Marxist, Socialist, Communist. This is the kind of bullshit economy you want Americans to live under with either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton.
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