A Cuban undertook a journey through eight countries for more than a month. Another paid a small fortune to escape in a speedboat. A third decided to risk a dangerous journey aboard a rudimentary raft that he himself made.
Cubans are leaving their country in one of the largest exodus of the last four decadesrisking their lives on a perilous journey to the United States by air, land, and sea to escape political and economic trouble.
The vast majority fly to Nicaragua as tourists and from there it makes its slow way to the US border, usually to Texas or Arizona. A small minority bets on arriving by sea. Three men who survived the ordeal spoke regarding her to The Associated Press.
Thousands of others share that same goal. Between January and July, US authorities they had 155,000 encounters with Cubans who entered through the border with Mexico, more than six times more than in the same period in 2021. In addition, between October and August, the Coast Guard intercepted more than 4,600 Cubans, almost six times more than in all of 2020.
Rolando José Cisneros Borroto, one of the migrants. AP Photo
The vast majority are released with notices to appear in immigration court or appear before immigration authorities.
This is the largest flight of Cubans since the so-called Mariel crisis in 1980, when almost 125,000 rfollowings arrived in the United States in a period of six months.
The exodus is driven by Cuba’s worst economic crisis in decades, as a result of 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 took place in November, when Nicaragua stopped requiring visas for Cubans to promote tourism.
Two of the three men spoke to the AP on condition that their names remain anonymous out of concern for the safety of relatives still living in Cuba. These are their stories:
He crossed eight countries and two rivers
Rolando José Cisneros Borroto was a street vendor in Camagüey, in central Cuba, but he said he was tired of going hungry and in need. Hoping to find a job that would allow her to support his family, He decided to leave his wife and three children.
The July 2021 protests led to nearly 1,400 arrests and fears of oppression that encouraged more Cubans to flee. AP Photo
Borroto, 42, sold everything, including his house, furniture and television, and raised regarding $13,000 to pay for their passage to the United States. His family was living in another house.
After having taken six flights, he arrived in Nicaragua in June. From there she traveled overland to Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.
He crossed two rivers on a floating rubberwalked mountains and along highways, rode buses, cars, and motorcycles.
To hide from the Mexican police, he spent days drinking water from the river and eating only grass in the bush. He finally crossed into the United States through Texas. and turned himself in to the Border Patrol.
He was released following three days in detention and now lives in Algona, Iowa, where a cousin offered him room and board. His odyssey was 36 days.
“I never thought it would take so much work to get there,” said Borroto, who was arrested three times in Cuba for selling garlic on the streets. he prefers to die on the way before staying in Cuba“.
He protested and fled by boat
Another 35-year-old Cuban had participated in the massive protests of July 2021, when thousands of people took to the streets demanding food and even a change of government. He was prosecuted on charges of public disorder and contempt and released following 30 days in prison. He fled in February, a month before being sentenced to five years in prison.
Another migrant fled in February, a month before being sentenced to five years in prison. AP Photo
Since his trial had not ended, traveling by plane 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 his brother knew he was leaving.
He was unemployed and asked his father, who lives in Texas, to help him paying regarding $15,000 to smugglers They were giving him instructions on what he had to do over the phone.
Two days before the crossing, they asked him to travel some 400 kilometers to Ciego de Avila, a city in the center of the island. From there a bus picked him up along with 30 other people and took them regarding 100 kilometers to the keys of Cuba, where did the speedboat leave from. Among the migrants were a pregnant woman shortly following giving birth and a seven-year-old boy.
They passed 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, regarding 50 meters from the coast. Then, already on land, they walked regarding a kilometer until several cars picked them up on a highway. A Cuban friend picked him up from a house where he was taken, he recalled.
A rudimentary raft
Cubans who cannot pay between 10,000 and 15,000 dollars to pay for a plane trip to Nicaragua and follow it by land, or to pay for a speedboat, sometimes they make their own rafts with pipes and wood.
Among them is a 37-year-old man who worked temporarily in construction and fishing. He mightn’t afford a smuggler and built a raft out of ten-foot-long aluminum tubes. In May 2021 sailed for 22 hours with three friends all the way to the Florida Keys.
“The first thing one thinks of is going out, either we all die of hunger little by little, or we try”, said the man who took regarding six months to secretly manufacture the boat. “I knew I might die in the water, but I needed to take the risk.”
He built it in secret, with money that he was saving day by day, taking care of 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 acquired the engine – which allowed him to advance at regarding 10 kilometers per hour – the same day of the trip.
For fear of being discovered, no one knew regarding the trip except his three companions, his mother and his wife. Much less the date. His colleagues found out just 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 at Allen’s office. They didn’t have GPS and oriented themselves by looking at the stars.
A whole day passed and when night was falling they saw the entry 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 headed out to sea once more, fearing they would 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 was taking photos. They helped them with the transfer to Miami. The man called his wife to tell her that she had arrived safely and asked her to tell her in-laws that she was on her way to her house in Miami.
He is now in the asylum process, hoping to be able to bring his wife and three teenage daughters.
AP Agency
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