Cuban migrants continued their journey through Mexico toward the United States on Thursday (January 14), flying northward from the southernmost state of Chiapas.
The migrants arrived early at the Tapachula airport and spent much of the day awaiting their flight.
Migrant Sandro said they were heading toward Mexico City and then on to the border.
“Now we are continuing the trip to the United States which is our final destination, toward the border. What border are we heading toward? We have a flight to D.F. (referring to Mexico City), to Juarez. We will go to D.F. for a layover and then from there to Juarez and from there to El Paso, the border of El Paso,” he said.
Percy Damian Corzo, the administrator of the Tapachula airport, said the migrants were moving along in their journey north.
“Another movement that brings the Cubans another step through this area. They are using the airways to get to their destination,” he said.
The Cubans’ journey is part of a pilot programme agreed on last month to start allowing the migrants to move toward the United States from Costa Rica, where they have been stuck since mid-November after Nicaragua shut its borders.
The first group, chosen out of an estimated 8,000 stranded there, flew to El Salvador on Tuesday, from where they boarded buses and arrived in Mexico on Wednesday.
The flow of migrants from Cuba has surged as the process of a detente between Washington and Havana stirs fears that preferential U.S. asylum rights for Cubans may end soon.
Central American governments will meet next Thursday in Guatemala to evaluate the first trip of Cubans and see if the transit programme should continue, Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez said on Wednesday. (Reuters)