Like David Gonzalez, thousands of Cubans are tired of “surviving instead of living” and are now trying by all means to reach the United States, in what is similar to the largest migratory wave of the story from the Caribbean island.
This 34-year-old hairdresser could no longer bear the repeated shortages in a country that is going through its worst economic crisis since the 1990s, nor its power, which it has never been able to accept, with no prospect for the future.
“You are losing hope. You try to project yourself into the future but in this country, you don’t see it, ”he explains from Miami, his final destination.
This desperation affects many young people in Cuba, causing them to flee en masse. Since December 1, 2021, US authorities estimate that they have made more than 270,000 arrests of Cubans trying to enter the United States illegally, i.e. nearly 2.5% of the island’s population.
A figure much higher than the previous big waves: that of Mariel in 1980, which had seen 125,000 people attempt the crossing, and the crisis of the “Balseros” (or boat people) in 1994, with about 34,000 people, points out Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.
The terrestrial way
Rather than the 150 kilometer crossing by boat, Mr. Gonzalez began his odyssey with a flight to Nicaragua, an ally of Cuban power to which visas are not required and which has become the first leg of the trip to the United States for the majority of Cubans taking the road to exile.
In total, the trip cost him 7,000 US dollars: 3,500 for the flight and then as much to pay the smugglers who brought him to the United States. A significant sum when the average Cuban monthly salary is 3768 pesos, or about 157 dollars.
The hairdresser financed part of it by selling what he owned and the rest came from a friend who had already settled in Miami.
“My real fear is that they will send me back to Cuba,” said Mr. Gonzalez, who arrived at the end of a 30-day trip through Central America by bus or in the back of a truck.
“Boat People”
Those who cannot afford to go through Nicaragua attempt the crossing between Cuba and Florida, aboard precarious boats.
On Christmas Day, the US Coast Guard intercepted about fifteen small ships near the Keys archipelago, in the far south of Florida, where dozens of people dock every week.
Mariana de la Caridad Fernandez, 20, and her sister Yaneris, 31, made the crossing in November to avoid being sentenced for their participation in the protests that rocked the island in July 2021 and to join their mother, already installed in Miami.
A journey of more than 16 hours between Cojimar, near Havana and Marquesas Island, at the end of the Keys, in the company of 40 other people.
Upon their arrival, a border police patrol arrested them before quickly releasing them. The two sisters have now applied for asylum and will be able to make their presence legal after a year on American soil thanks to the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA), which offers permanent residence to any Cuban refugee.
But others were not so lucky because boats intercepted at sea are sent back to Cuba unless they can prove that the occupants’ lives are in danger.
Since October 1, 3,724 Cubans have been intercepted on board boats, about half of all those intercepted between October 2021 and October 2022. Not to mention the boats that disappear at sea.
In April, a boat with 14 people on board overturned, only five of its occupants managing to reach the Cuban coast by swimming.
Miriela’s nephew, Luis Miguel, is among those missing. “Not knowing what happened to him makes us suffer all the more”, explains this Cuban who refuses to give her name because she works in a public company. “We do not lose hope, even though he has been missing for six months”.
In Miami, David Gonzalez now hopes to avoid expulsion and take advantage of CAA. He has resumed his work as a hairdresser and thinks he has found what he is looking for: a better future.