Some 2,430 Cubans have requested asylum in Spain so far this year, according to data presented by the Ministry of the Interior of that country. The Island surpassed the 2022 statistics by 1,038 cases, when 1,392 applications were submitted, going from tenth place on the list to fifth.
However, the number of Cubans who have been granted protection has been extremely low: just 10 at the end of the third quarter of the year.
The data also reveals that some 622 applications from Cubans have been rejected so far and in no case has asylum been granted for humanitarian reasons, a process from which Venezuelans have benefited, with 38,179 cases approved so far this year.
Another 3,619 files of migrants from the Island are pending approval by the Asylum and Refuge Office of Spain.
With Cuba in fifth place by number of applications submitted, the list is headed by Venezuela, with 46,585 cases, followed by Colombia (41,769), Peru (11,116) and Honduras (2,957).
The list is headed by Venezuela, with 46,585 cases, followed by Colombia, Peru and Honduras.
Months ago, in March of this year, this newspaper documented the collapse of the Spanish Government website that grants appointments for the Immigration offices, where asylum is requested, among other procedures.
Interviewed by 14ymedio, Irene, a Cuban who had been trying to access the system for weeks, said that she had contacted the Spanish authorities due to the malfunction of the page. Her response left her stunned: “The system is overwhelmed because the Cubans themselves make an appointment and then sell their turn to other migrants.”
The officer then commented that the collapse of the system has been occurring for a long time, with the avalanche of Cubans and Venezuelans to the Peninsula. Furthermore, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused hundreds of thousands of citizens of that country to flee the conflict to countries in the European Union, including Spain.
For the young woman, it was a surprise to know that the Cubans had managed to export the “traps” from the Island to Europe. “Worse for you,” the Immigration officer then snapped, in an angry tone, “because if the most affected are those who make a business out of this, things will be worse for them.” According to the agent, the “resellers” have managed to fill the shifts as soon as they leave, generally on Monday, and in a few minutes they cover all the requests.
Last August, the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration told the EFE agency that Cubans occupy eighth place on the list of migrants in an irregular situation who have been granted residency due to roots in Spain in the last twelve months and take, on average, only two years to achieve it. A time that is considered quite short if compared to the average for other Latin Americans, which is around three and a half years.
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