Cuba: US migration policy 'incoherent' and 'differentiated'

HAVANA (AP) — Two days before the opening of migration talks between Cuba and the United States, which have been paralyzed for four years, a high-ranking Cuban official lamented Washington's “incoherent” and “differentiated” migration policies, and exhorted Washington to comply with current agreements.

The migration meeting will take place amid a dramatic increase in arrivals of Cubans at the southern border of the United States.

“We are noticing, and now much more these days, that there is a differentiated and incoherent approach by the United States toward the migratory issue,” Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal told a small group of journalists on Tuesday.

The U.S. is financially helping "many countries in the region in order to reactivate their economies, to help them create jobs,” including supporting health and education projects, said Vidal. Washington's policy is exactly the opposite with Cuba, where it is applying “maximum pressure to the economic order and through coercive measures.”

Cuba's Foreign Ministry said on Twitter that the meeting will be held in Washington Thursday and its delegation will be headed by deputy minister Carlos Fernández de Cossio.

The last of these meetings — which according to agreements between both countries must be held twice a year — took place in July 2018, under the administration of then President Donald Trump.

Trump ended the policy of rapprochement between both nations that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had begun.

Trump increased sanctions against the Caribbean island, from the cancellation of permits to send remittances or cruise ships, to penalties for companies from third countries that operate in Cuba, to limitation of flights and punishment of oil tankers bound for Cuba.

These measures and the pandemic contributed...