Rick Jervis

USA TODAY

Mexican authorities announced Friday that they have deported dozens of Cubans who had arrived at Mexico’s southern border hoping to reach the U.S. — the first deportation by the country since a repeal of the so-called "wet foot/dry foot" policy.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said it put 91 Cuban migrants on a federal police airplane and flew them back to the communist island after the Cuban government accepted their return, according to the Associated Press. Mexico has always been able to deport Cubans but rarely did since the Cuban government refused to accept them.

It was the first deportation by Mexico since President Obama revoked the “wet foot/dry foot” policy on Jan. 12 that awarded Cuban migrants amnesty if they reached U.S. soil. The repeal caught hundreds of Cubans who were trekking across Central and South America and Mexico to reach the U.S. border by surprise.

The Mexican government would typically give Cubans arriving on its southern border a 20-day transit visa to reach the U.S. border. But the 91 Cubans – 20 women and 71 men – held at a detention center in Tapachula were instead repatriated to Cuba, according to the Associated Press.

More than 100 other Cubans have reached the U.S.-Mexico border crossing at Nuevo Laredo but have been turned back by U.S. border guards, citing the change in U.S. policy. Many of them have said they will stay there rather than return to Cuba and apply for a U.S. visa. It is unclear how Mexico or the U.S. will deal with those migrants.

Cuba’s willingness to accept the Cubans is another sign of the normalizing of immigration rules between Cuba, the U.S. and other Latin American countries, said William LeoGrande, government professor at American University and co-author of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana.

“The problem is hundreds, if not thousands, of Cubans were stranded somewhere in Southern and Central America when President Obama changed the policy,” he said. “For the countries in the region, this has been a major issue.”

Last year, Colombia adopted emergency measures against illegal migration, including plans to deport thousands of migrants and reinforce its borders, in response to the flood of Cubans illegally crossing its borders.

The wet foot/dry foot rule, created by President Clinton in 1995, allowed most Cubans who touched U.S. soil to stay in the country, while those intercepted at sea were repatriated to Cuba. After a year in the country, they were allowed to apply for legal permanent residence.

Cuban officials have long denounced the rule, saying it incentivizes Cubans to leave the island. Other critics of the policy say it was put in place to help Cubans fleeing political persecution from the communist island but Cubans had used it in recent years for economic betterment.

The new policy forces Cubans to apply for visas in their home country, like other hopeful migrants or face deportation if they enter illegally. About 20,000 U.S. visas are awarded in Cuba each year.

Since relations began improving two years ago between Washington and Havana, thousands of Cubans each year have been rushing to the U.S., fearing their preferential immigration status may be abolished. Overall, 56,406 Cubans entered the U.S. via ports of entry in fiscal year 2016, more than double the number who arrived in 2014, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.