Rights group: US deported Cubans, Venezuelans into cartel danger

MEXICO CITY (AP):

The Trump administration has deported nearly 13,000 Cubans, Venezuelans and other nationals to Mexico, where they are vulnerable to cartel violence in an unfamiliar country, a report by Human Rights Watch released yesterday said.

While Mexico has accepted such deportations for years, those under the Trump administration tend to be older and to have lived in the US for longer than in the past. This makes it more difficult for them to find work and increases the urgency of their need for medical care.

The report, based on more than 50 interviews in the southern Mexican cities of Tapachula and Villahermosa, comes as US President Donald Trump has expanded immigration enforcement as part of his mass-deportation plan.

This has meant that immigrants not previously targeted, such as Cubans who have lived in the US for years or decades, have been caught up in the immigration dragnet. Some countries, such as Cuba and Venezuela, limit deportation flights or do not accept deportees at all, so they are instead sent to Mexico or other countries with which the US has struck agreements.

“Imagine being 60 or 70 years old, uprooted from your life overnight and sent to a country you don’t know, where authorities leave you out to dry without access to even the most basic services, shelter, healthcare. Imagine being dropped in dangerous cities with nothing but the clothes on your back,” said Alcira Hava, Leonard H. Sandler Fellow at Human Rights Watch, who worked on the report.

“That’s the reality for many Cubans deported to Mexico,” Hava said.

Cubans represent the largest group sent to Mexico, according to the report, with more than 4,300 deported. More than half of the 41 Cubans interviewed had lived in the US since the 1980s or 1990s, arriving during the Mariel boatlift or through a lottery programme in the 1990s. Most had held green cards, but had lost them.

More than half of the Cubans deported had a criminal record, but only 16 per cent were for violent crimes, according to the researchers. One-fourth had no criminal history.

Most were detained during routine check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but some were detained at their workplace or in public spaces. None were taken before a judge to contest their deportation to Mexico, even when they expressed fear for their safety.

The Cuban diaspora, with access to a fast-tracked pathway to residency and citizenship through the Cuban Adjustment Act, has been shocked by the extent of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Once in Mexico, these deportees are sent to southern cities with few job opportunities, limited access to medical care, and where cartels prey on them. They face a complicated process to obtain refugee status in Mexico, if they qualify at all.

A shelter in Villahermosa has received Cuban deportees as old as 83 in the past year, a departure from the young men and families it usually serves, according to shelter worker Josué Leal.

“The US discards them. Cuba discards them,” Leal said, calling it a form of “double punishment”.

How these third-country deportations are being carried out remains unclear, as neither the US nor Mexico has made the agreement public. Human Rights Watch called on both countries to publish the agreement and to ensure that due process and international law are respected in these cases.

It also called on Mexico to ensure access to medical treatment and a pathway to legalise immigration status for those unable to return to their home countries. It urged the US to suspend these deportations in the absence of such guarantees.