Cuban Migration Spikes as U.S. Relations With Havana Thaw

Eight-year-old Vanesa Amador stands patiently on a bridge that joins Mexico and the United States. She is feet away from a country she admits she knows nothing about but has strong feelings for . . .

Vanesa and her mother, Mayra, are part of a group of about 120 Cubans who made a long journey through several Latin American countries before boarding a charter plane in Costa Rica to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, the border town with Laredo, Texas.

The number of Cubans entering the United States nearly doubled last year, compared with the year before. That trend shows no signs of slowing. More Cubans are coming to the United States because they fear that a thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations will end a longstanding policy granting legal status to any Cuban national who reaches dry land in the United States.

Two in three Cubans who came to the United States to stay in the last two years arrived in Laredo. They consider this the beginning of a life different from the one they left on their native island. (Read more from “Cuban Migration Spikes as U.S. Relations With Havana Thaw” HERE)

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