A ‘Silent Mariel’ Airlift from Cuba Underway Just in Time for Massive Phase II of the Biden Border Crisis
Nicaragua Ministry of Tourism: ‘They are lovers of volcanoes. They don’t have volcanoes’
By Todd Bensman on April 4, 2022
Cuba and Nicaragua have opened a new air passageway to the American southern border and thousands of U.S.-bound Cubans have poured through the short-cut while tens of thousands more are reportedly lining up daily in Havana for tickets, according to Spanish-language media reporting.
One March 22 BBC Mundo story quotes a Cuban migrant named Carlos, who made it to Miami from Nicaragua, describing how Cubans are selling houses and everything they own to “line up for miles in front of agencies waiting to see if there is a ticket”.
The easier new route threatens significant additional consequences for a gathering second phase almost certain to outdo the first year of a mass migration already historic in number that began immediately after President Joe Biden took office in January 2021 and dismantled his predecessor’s deterrence- and enforcement-based policies.
The Biden administration is now preparing to manage a powerful anticipated surge of as many as 18,000 migrant crossings a day, or 540,000 per month after May 23. That is the date it’s scheduled to lift the last vestiges of the Trump-era “Title 42” pandemic containment policy, which has required somewhat deterring instant expulsions to Mexico of some 1.7 million illegal immigrant border-crossers, including Cubans, and barred them from accessing the coveted deportation-defeating American asylum system.
https://cis.org/Bensman/Silent-Mariel-Airlift-Cuba-Underway-Just-Time-Massive-Phase-II-Biden-Border-Crisis