Immigration officials at Laredo turn back protesting Cubans

Cubans stranded in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico gather at Plaza Juarez in the border city to hold a rally and march from the plaza to the International Bridge, on Saturday, April. 8, 2017. Cubans stranded in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico gather at Plaza Juarez in the border city to hold a rally and march from the plaza to the International Bridge, on Saturday, April. 8, 2017. Photo: Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News Photo: Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 29 Caption Close Immigration officials at Laredo turn back protesting Cubans 1 / 29 Back to Gallery

NUEVO LAREDO — A peaceful demonstration Saturday morning of about 500 Cuban migrants hoping to call attention to their plight in Mexico quickly escalated when a large group moved the protest to the international bridge.

Many have been in Mexico since January, when President Barack Obama ended their privileged migrant status, and have grown restless.

Mexican soldiers armed with rifles turned them back, but a dozen slipped past the soldiers in a second wave, only to be told by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers that the bridge was closed to them.

“What if I want to turn myself in and ask for asylum?” one man asked.

“The law has changed, you have to go back,” a CBP officer responded before escorting the Cuban man to the Mexican side of the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge.

That reaction is contrary to CBP’s repeated claims that Cubans still are permitted to pursue asylum — and stay in the United States until the asylum request is processed — if they express a fear of returning to their native country, just as those from Central American countries can do.

“CBP is not turning anyone away,” the agency said earlier this year. In a statement released Saturday, the agency said the same thing when asked why the agent sent the Cuban back to Mexico. The statement said the agency “has not changed any policies affecting asylum procedures” but did not address the discrepancy.

In the days leading up to the demonstration, many of the more than 1,000 Cubans stranded on the Mexican side of the border since Obama ended the “wet foot, dry foot” policy have grown increasingly frustrated that President Donald Trump has yet to make his policy regarding the islanders clear. Hence, Saturday’s march, organized largely through social media.

On Saturday morning, Reinier Aguila Esquivel, a 34-year-old contractor from Camaguey, held a sign that read “the Cuban people want to help make U.S.A. great again.” He listened intently as a pastor told the Cubans that while their future in the United States was uncertain, they have to avoid trouble to be allowed to stay in Mexico while they wait for Trump to take action. A couple of hours later, Esquivel sat in the middle of the pedestrian bridge.

“I want an answer,” he shouted at U.S. immigration officials, who were urging him to go back to Mexico. “We have a right.”

Check out the air-to-land route from Cuba to the U.S. (red) and a sea-to-land route used by some migrants recently (green).

Just a few months ago, Cubans were streaming across this bridge under a decades-old provision of the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. Thawing relations between Washington and Havana in late 2014 set off a wave of migration. Nearly 100,000 men, women and children made U.S. landfall before the wet-foot, dry-foot policy ended, even as thousands of Cubans still were in transit. Hundreds have made it to Nuevo Laredo since and they continue to arrive.

In the beginning, they lingered near the pedestrian bridge to Laredo, hoping for a reversal of fortune. As days bled into weeks and then months, the hapless migrants fanned out across the city, taking refuge in churches, migrant shelters, hotels and apartments. Eventually, the flow of humanitarian assistance ran dry, and they were left to fend for themselves.

Starting a restaurant

These days, the Cuban diaspora work odd jobs, or have conjured them from sheer will. Some work in construction and maquiladoras, others work the graveyard shift as security guards or even make tortillas. Lourdes de la Torre, a 49-year-old accountant from Camaguey, went one step further and helped open a restaurant.

“A year ago, I never would have imagined this,” De la Torre said of Restaurant el Cubanito. “It certainly wasn’t my plan.”

But after the church groups stopped bringing them food there was nothing to eat. De la Torre pooled her money with others lodging in the Hotel Don Antonio to buy food. The hotel manager, Jesse Hernandez, 35, offered them the kitchen.

De la Torre sleeps on the floor of a room shared with six others, and the evening meals were something to look forward to. But Hernandez, a Mexican national who recently was deported from the United States and stumbled into his management position at the hotel, saw an opportunity. He found a hole-in-the-wall location with just enough space for counters along the walls.

The restaurant employs five, offering Cuban-style shredded beef, fried bananas, black beans and rice. It has become a curiosity around town. On Saturday, Hernandez and De la Torre opened a second Cubanito down the street from the first. The money isn’t much, De la Torre said, but it’s enough to survive.

Still, the restaurant is only a temporary diversion for De la Torre. She landed in Mexico in January, following in the footsteps of her daughter, who a year ago arrived pregnant in Laredo. Her grandson was born in Houston, and her daughter is on the fast track to becoming a legal resident under the old pro-Cuban policy. If the opportunity arises, De la Torre said she, too, will leave for Texas.

“But if (Trump) says no to us,” De la Torre said, “then I’ll decide what to do next.”

Staying in Mexico

Protests aside, the only serious discussion regarding Cubans has focused on what Mexican authorities intend to do with them all. In February, Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco Cabeza de Vaca suggested federal immigration authorities remove them from his state. Instead, it now appears that many will be allowed to stay.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute on Friday announced that 588 Cuban migrants in Nuevo Laredo will receive residency permits. The first group of 273 Cubans will soon get theirs, which also will allow them to work legally.

The news surely came as relief for some, but there are many who have been reluctant to apply for such a permit, fearing it could hurt their chances of being admitted into the United States. Father Giovanni Visoto, director of Nazareth migrant shelter, has tried to disabuse them of this notion. But they hold fast to the belief that Trump eventually will let them into the United States, despite all evidence to the contrary, the priest added.

“Trump is trying to remove immigrants from the country, and keep others from getting in,” Visoto said. “But the Cubans continue with their dream.”

Visoto rattled off attempts to wake them from this dream, such as the time federal officials proposed transferring them to Guadalajara to wait out the humanitarian visa application process. They declined, Visoto said.

His shelter houses 80 Cubans in a location set up as a temporary space for 140 migrants and deportees in transit. Anticipating a greater number of deportees coming in from the U.S., Visoto has declined to take on more of the Cubans.

When they aren’t playing domino or gossiping, the Cubans at the Nazareth shelter spend hours searching social media for the latest developments concerning their plight.

One recent day, rumors of a policy change on the horizon stirred dozens to set up camp in Juarez Plaza, a block from the international bridge. It mattered little that weeks before there had been an attempted mass kidnapping of Cubans in a nearby hotel. They were warned that this dangerous stretch of cartel-controlled border was not to be tested, Visoto said. They set up camp nonetheless, refusing to budge for three days.

In Cuba, they had lived under an oppressive regime, explained Esquivel. To reach the U.S.-Mexico border many had walked through jungles after being crowded in rickety boats. They sold possessions, leaving nothing for them to return to, and many were robbed on the journey across 10 international borders.

“You think sleeping in a plaza scares me?” Esquivel said. “No.”

Little pay, lot of stress

In the evening, as people return from work to a rundown hotel, the aroma of frying onions and chicken soon fills the air. The rooms are supposed to have air conditioners and televisions, but not all of them work. Those who have taken up residence here bought hot plates and appliances to cook their own food and drink their own coffee.

The long days of uncertainty weigh heavy, Esquivel said. He has fallen into depression. His appetite is gone. One day last week he ran his fingers through his thick hair. When he looked at the palm of his hand he was startled to find strands of hair.

“It’s the stress,” he said.

For a time Esquivel worked at a construction job, but the $11 he earned per day hardly was worth the effort, he said.

Emilio Gonzalez, 59, has taken on a leadership role among his stranded countrymen. They all want to reach the United States, he said, but everyone should have a backup plan should that fail. The advice is not the answer Esquivel wants to hear.

When the wet-foot, dry-foot policy ended, he already was in Honduras. He had sold his house and everything he owned for $3,500 to make the trip.

“I’ve lost everything. There’s nothing to go back to,” Esquivel said. “I don’t know what I’ll have to do to get to the (U.S.) — one way or another I’m going in.”

anelsen@express-news.net