U.S. considering resuming migration agreements with Cuba

The United States will explore the possibility of resuming immigration agreements with Cuba, said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday during a press conference in Panama, reported Reuters.

Mayorkas, who is accompanying President Joe Biden to a regional meeting on immigration in the Central American country, said the U.S. is committed to attack the root causes of migration to his country.

The politician of Cuban descent and Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that Biden is willing to spend 1.2 billion dollars in Central America to generate jobs and reduce migratory flows. He hopes to reach an agreement on the issue at the IX Summit of the Americas that will take place in June in Los Angeles.

Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal told AP and CNN in Havana on Wednesday, that the U.S. "is providing economic aid to many countries in the region to reactivate their economies, to help them generate jobs,” but maintains an "iron fist" with the island.

"For Cuba the agreements are important," explained Vidal, who urged the U.S. to do its part for the good of both nations and the entire region.

The official, who headed the negotiations between the U.S. and Cuba in 2014 that concluded with the reopening of diplomatic headquarters and Barack Obama's trip to the island, declined to provide the agenda that Havana is bringing to the meeting.

The meeting is the highest-level meeting between Cuba and the U.S. since 2018. It is scheduled for Thursday, April 22. So far, neither side has mentioned the specific topics that will be touched upon in the talks and what they would ask of their counterpart.

Talks on these issues were interrupted in July 2018, when delegations from both countries met for the last time in Washington. The meeting for December of that year was not scheduled due to the incidents of the so-called "Havana syndrome" and the Trump administration's sanctions against the island.

As of October 2021, the Cuban regime will stop accepting new deportations from the United States, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told El Nuevo Herald.