Camera captures video of Cuban immigrant family swimming across the Rio Grande

A family of Cubans was captured by the cameras of Más Televisión while trying to cross the Rio Grande on the border between Mexico and the United States in order to seek asylum.

In the video, children cry as their parents force them into the cold water and stuff their clothes into plastic bags. One of the children was swept away by the current, although he was later saved by a member of the family.

On the American shore, uniformed agents from the United States were waiting for them, who carried them to their vehicles and presumably took them to a detention center, the Mexican television network journalist commented.

Many Cubans have lost their lives trying to cross the Rio Grande that divides Mexico from the United States. Hundreds have died crossing the Darién Gap, on the border between Colombia and Panama, which since January has been traveled by more than 10,700 Cubans, according to data from the National Migration Service of Panama.

The arrival of Cubans in the United States had slowed down as of January 12, 2017, when President Barack Obama announced the end of the “wet feet, dry feet” policy, ushering an era in which Cuban immigrants would be treated the same as those from other nationalities.

Before the repeal of the policy, Cubans who set foot on US soil could remain in the country and apply for permanent residence after one year thanks to the Cuban Adjustment Act.

However, in the current fiscal year the figures have skyrocketed, both for those arriving by land and those trying to escape by sea.

On February 2021, three Cubans were rescued by members of the Fire Department and Civil Protection in coordination with the Beta group and the Red Cross, after being stranded for more than five hours on a small islet in the Rio Grande, in the Mexican city of Acuña, state of Coahuila.

As reported by Zócalo newspaper, the rescue was carried out on the afternoon of February 14, when the migrants tried to cross illegally into the United States, due to the height of the Las Alamedas subdivision.

Due to the strong current of the Rio Grande, the Cubans were stranded on the islet. Seeing that time was passing and they could die of hypothermia, they decided to scream for help, according to the note published in the aforementioned local media.