Three young Cubans who were traveling to the United States under the new humanitarian parole program have been detained by immigration authorities in Mexico, their relatives denounced on Sunday.
The young people thought they were living their last hours in Mexico and even took a photo shortly before boarding an Aeroméxico flight at Tapachula airport.
Yida, Dachel and Amehd had been waiting for weeks for their applications for humanitarian parole to be approved and on February 16 they were preparing to travel to the United States.
“They went through immigration, they checked all their papers. They told them they could fly,” said Carmen Sardinas, mother of Dachel Cué Sardiñas, one of the young women, in Miami.
They safely boarded the plane that took them from Tapachula to Mexico City, where they had a nine-hour layover, but there they found something else.
“The ‘migra’ was waiting for them. And they sent all the Cubans to line up to ask for the passports of all the Cubans and two Venezuelans,” Sardiñas said.
Carmen knew everything in real time because Dachel told her everything that had happened on the phone. And Yida did the same with his parents in Cuba.
“She calls me and says: dad, we are detained, they arrested us. Immigration arrested all the Cubans who came on the flight,” said Carlos Hernández, Yida’s father.
As Carmen watched the GPS on Dachel’s phone, she watched the young woman drive away from the airport until she reached an immigration checkpoint southeast of Mexico City.
Telemundo 51 has reviewed the documents sent by the relatives and they look like travel authorizations, regularly issued by the state government. Joined. Relatives also showed us the humanitarian visa of one of the young women, issued by the Mexican government and valid for one year.
“Apparently immigration (in Mexico) tells them they don’t know about parole, they don’t know what sponsorship is, or a flight permit, or whatever, that they were illegal in Mexico,” Hernández said.
Telemundo 51 has attempted to contact the National Institute of Immigration of Mexico, but at the moment it has not been possible to do so.