Nicaragua, the new Mariel for Cubans seeking to reach the US

For Yailyn Padrón, it was the hardest five weeks of her life. Reaching the southern border of the United States cost the Cuban from the center of the island a pair of shoes, losing 10 pounds in weight and almost 10,000 dollars, without counting “the anguish and fear of not knowing if in the next section we they were going to rob or worse. I think I lost five years of life, ”she told the voice of america from Miami.

“I knew it would be a step that would change my life, I thought about it and said to myself: ‘but if this is not life here in Cuba, what are you waiting for? ‘, and I launched. Nicaragua was the easiest way, if that can be called easy,” explains Padrón, who is part of the record of 177,848 migrants who traveled from the island to the US between September 2021 and July 2022.

This great new wave has already exceeded the number of Cubans who arrived during the exodus from the Cuban port of Mariel in the 1980s, from which 125,000 migrants left for the United States and which marked a before and after in the history of the island, and the so-called Crisis of the rafters at the beginning of the decade of 1990, combined, according to data from the US Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP).

The new wave of migration coincides with the decision of the Nicaraguan government in November 2021 to eliminate the visa requirement for Cubans, who have used the Central American country as a springboard to reach the United States. Experts describe Nicaragua as a new Mariel.

Economic crisis, pandemic and repression: the perfect storm

For academic Jorge Duany, director of the Center for Cuban Studies at Florida International University, “a perfect storm” has formed on the island that has caused this unprecedented number of migrants.

“This is the largest number of people trying to leave Cuba since the great exoduses of a few decades ago. Not only from Mariel, but I would dare to say that it is the biggest migratory crisis in the history of Cuba,” Duany told the VOA.

“Never in a single year had more than 177,000 migrants been counted,” he said.

For Duany, the main reason for this exodus is the severe economic crisis that Cuba is experiencing, the worst since the so-called “Special Period” of the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union, the island’s main ally at the time, was dissolved.

In 2020, the Cuban economy registered a decrease of almost 11%, explained Duany, and in 2021 it barely had a 0.5% growth. “Although the numbers are crude, they do not reflect the difficulty that the Cuban population has every day to stock up on medicines, food, gasoline, everything essential to live. To that we must add the blackouts that have occurred lately, which do not It seems that they have an immediate solution”, he pointed out.

Added to this is the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the borders to be closed and stopped tourism, considered the engine of the island’s economy, and the loss of remittances due to the departure of Western Union from the island due to economic sanctions. during the administration of President Donald Trump, Duany said.

Finally, Duany pointed to “the social outbreak of July 2021”, the anti-government political protests that resulted in further repression of the population.

“That is why I say that it is a perfect storm, because it is about economic, social, health and political elements that coincide to produce a situation that is clearly desperate, which leads all these people to try to leave the country”, he explained.

Arelys, a Havana teacher who “juggles” her state salary and preferred not to reveal her last name for fear of reprisals, agrees with Duany. “Yes, that’s the word, desperation. I can hardly sleep at night because of the heat. They cut us off the power up to three times a day, I spend all my time looking for food and I have realized that I have become obsessed with hoarding. Not to mention that everything has gone up a lot in price, ”she complained to the VOA.

Although Arelys does not intend to “launch the journey” through Nicaragua, she understands why many follow the dangerous path. “If you don’t see a future, you don’t have much to lose. It is sad, but it is the pure reality, ”she lamented.

From Managua to the US without seeing volcanoes

Since 2019, the government of Daniel Ortega, a strong ally of Havana, had already facilitated the islanders’ trips to Managua. Cubans who arrived in the Nicaraguan capital made massive purchases of products to resell them on the island, which imports the vast majority of what it consumes. But those scenes are becoming less common.

The elimination of the Nicaraguan visa for Cubans drastically changed the dynamicaccording to sources consulted by the VOA.

A merchant from the Mercado Oriental in Managua, considered the largest in Central America, told the VOA that the massive sales to Cubans diminished. “There were quite a few Cubans who came and exported different types of products, be it clothes, shoes, food, provisions,” but not anymore, said the trader, who asked not to be identified.

Experts say that most of Cubans use Nicaragua as a transit route and they only stay for a maximum of a week, waiting for the coyotes to transport them to Mexico by land through Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The former president of the Nicaraguan Chamber of Tourism, Lucy Valenti, points out that any trip that means that people spend the night in the country of destination is considered tourism, regardless of the motivation of the travelers, because they have an impact on the economy.

According to data from the Nicaraguan Institute of Tourism, in 2021 a total of 312,000 tourists entered the country, of them 7,685 Cubans, mostly during December, a month after the free visa was established.

Valenti acknowledges that a good part of the Cubans who arrive in Nicaragua do so with the purpose of illegally emigrating to the United States.

“This is the other side of the coin of this juicy business that some with ties to the Nicaraguan government are carrying out with great profits for their pockets at the expense of the misfortune of the poor Cuban people, who in their desperation to leave a country that does not offers them no quality of life, nor civic liberties, nor human rights, they do everything possible to raise excessive sums of money to buy their ticket to freedom,” said Valenti.

“Unfortunately, in Nicaragua there are those who lend themselves to such exploitation,” he said.

The Cuban authorities have not commented on the new migratory route.

According to Jorge Duany, the Cuban government has historically used migration as an “escape valve.”

“Cuba is interested in exporting a large number of people dissatisfied with the economic and political situation in the country. And on the other hand there are remittances, because as soon as these people leave Cuba they start sending money to their relatives and that is one of the ways by which both the population and the regime survive,” the academic pointed out.

The difference now is that the migrants are moving along a land route, different from the air and sea route of the last waves, he said.

“In the past there have been other routes, such as Panama, Ecuador and less commonly Guyana, but now it is clear that the Managua-Havana route is what is fueling this exodus,” he insisted.

For its part, Managua denies that it is being used as transit and the Tourism authorities even said that Cubans traveled to Nicaragua because they are “lovers of volcanoes”, which caused a wave of memes and ridicule on social networks.

“No volcanoes, I traveled to Nicaragua because I wanted to leave Cuba,” said Padrón, the Cuban from the center of the island who made the trip. “I only saw the volcanoes in photos. Of course, I walked through fields, jungles, crossed rivers, rode as many means of land transportation as you can think of, ”he recalled.

An international network based on thousands of dollars and… trust

The Havana-Managua-United States route works through an intricate well-oiled mechanism that moves with thousands of dollars and through word of mouth. It is also based on trust.

Nena, a Cuban who arranged a family member’s journey from Miami and preferred not to give her real name or specific details to protect the travelers, who were halfway there, said that some friends who made the journey recently gave them the contact of “a person in Cuba who supposedly has an agency that sells tickets to Nicaragua and arranges the entire trip for you,” he told the VOA.

The person in Cuba with the “agency” has partners in Miami, where the tickets are sold at almost triple their value. “At first I thought of going directly to the airlines, but I realized that they do the same thing as charter flights to Cuba: they buy the entire flights and then resell them. In the end I ended up paying $7,200 for two tickets. It is disrespectful because it has two stopovers of several hours but there was no other way,” said the woman.

The entire operation is coordinated via Whatsapp. When the money deposit is verified, the tickets are delivered several days later. The people from the “agency” make sure that each traveler has an updated passport and facilitate contacts to obtain vaccination cards and offer hotel reservations belonging to the coyote network that transports the migrants when they arrive in Nicaragua.

“According to the friends who gave him to us, he is a very trustworthy contact. It’s all through contacts and friends. There is of course no legal way that you can go to claim if something happens. Everything is based on recommendations, word of mouth. He says that they are very serious people, very good and that they take care of you. They guarantee that you get to the border,” Nena said.

Before the trip, the coordinator sends a photo of a sign that the person in charge of picking them up at the airport in Managua will carry and then in Nicaragua they inform them about what the journey will be like and who will guide them. The journey can cost between 5,000 and 10,000 dollars per person and can take between a month and 15 days, depending on the price.

“If you pay more, you arrive faster. I have a friend who arrived in two weeks because they put him on small planes. The money is not paid all at once. You are paying in parts. I understand that he is not a single coyote, but several, ”he specified.

Some of Nena’s friends told her that they even had to ride horses because the hostel where they stayed in Nicaragua was in the middle of the countryside. “They coordinate everything, they have the route well connected and they know when to move forward or not, depending on who they have bought,” explained Nena.

The small fortunes Cubans spend to get to the United States are mostly loans from friends and family. Many sell everything they have for the dream of a new life and a future.

“I sold everything, even the house that my parents left me. And she would do it again, ”said Yailyn, who is working to pay those who helped her. “It will take me time, but I prefer to work here and see the fruit of my work, than slowly die there in Cuba.”

[Con la colaboración de Houston Castillo, de la VOA]

Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.