On Tuesday, the United States government announced that it asked Cuban authorities to receive fellow citizens deported from U.S. territory in exchange for granting 20.000 annual visas from its embassy in Havana.
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In 2017, the United States withdrew staff from its embassy in Cuba and halted consular proceedings after claiming its diplomatic representation suffered alleged sonic attacks by national authorities.
This closure prompted thousands of Cubans could not to finish their family reunification procedures and had to travel to third countries to apply for visas for the United States.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump imposed 243 sanctions against Cuba, including canceling permits to send remittances to Cuba, persecution of third-country companies operating with Havana, and limitation of direct U.S.-Cuba flights.
These unilateral coercive measures strengthened the economic recession prompted by the pandemic and forced thousands of Cubans to migrate irregularly. According to the United States Customs and Border Protection (USCBP), 79.800 Cuban migrants were detained at the U.S.-Mexico border from February to March.
"We see no justification for the United States to not resume consular procedures at its embassy in Havana or comply with the 20,000 annual visas grating as it was agreed since the 1990s," Cuba’s Vice Foreign Affairs Minister Josefina Vidal stated.
"It is inconceivable that the United States fails to make progress towards normalizing relations with Cuba after the diplomatic thaw reached during President Barack Obama’s administration (2009-2017),” she stressed.