Central American Nations Agree on Deal to Move Cuban Migrants

Central American countries have reached an agreement Monday to resolve the situations of the thousands of Cubans left stranded in Costa Rica on their way to the United States.

According to a release from Costa Rica’s Presidency, the countries agreed to conduct a pilot exercise to fly out some of the Cubans to El Salvador, where they would be put on buses to cross Guatemala and enter Mexico.

The first transfer of migrants will happen in the first week of January, Prensa Latina reported.

The agreement is a breakthrough for the thousands of Cuban migrants who have been stranded in Costa Rica for over a month after several Central American nations barred their entry.

Last month, Nicaragua closed its border and prohibited an influx of people attempting to enter the country. Guatemala and Belize quickly followed suit after Mexico said it would also refuse them entry, arguing that its current migration laws would prohibit such a move.

The countries represented "reaffirmed their commitment to fight against human trafficking networks, ensuring that the law that severely penalizes this illegal activity is applied," reads a statement from the meeting.

"It is important to remember that, as the Government of the Republic of Costa Rica had announced, we do not have the ability to receive and to give transit visas to more people,” said Costa Rica’s Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez. “So this solution is absolutely extraordinary and only for those people who are already in our country."

ANALYSIS: US Immigration Policy for Cuba: A Cold War Relic

To prevent irregular migration and combat human trafficking, the statement added that this "unfortunately obliges countries of the region to return any person entering its territory in an unauthorized manner to their country of origin."

Roughly 6,000 Cuban migrants are currently stranded in Costa Rica and over 1,000 more in Panama. They are looking to continue en route to the United States.

Many blame the U.S.'s “wet-foot, dry-foot” migration policy for spurring the migration of Cubans to the United States. The policy grants Cubans residency when they touch down on U.S. soil, encouraging migration despite failing to provide Cubans with legal or safe channels to reach the country.

Earlier in December, Cuban President Raul Castro slammed U.S. policy for fomenting Cuban migration while simultaneously discriminating against other Latin American countries in the region, as only Cubans are granted special residency rights.