7 News Belize

The Cubans Imprisoned In Belize Will Be Freed
posted (January 21, 2016)
For weeks we've been reporting on the 32 Cubans who are imprisoned at Hattieville. They're in a kind of legal limbo: they have no immigration status in Belize, and Cuba doesn't want them back. So even though they've served their time, they've been stuck in prison because government has nowhere else to put them.

Well, tonight 7news has confirmed that has changed: Minister of Immigration Godwin Hulse told us that as early as tomorrow, he will sign an instrument giving them their freedom. He said there is no need for the incarceration to continue and from a humanitarian point of view, they should be released. He added that once they are released, he expects that they would want to continue unto the US, which will accept over 7 thousand Cuban migrants who were stuck for months at the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border. The first 180 of them flew to El Salvador last week, where they boarded a bus bound for Mexico, and received transit visas to go to the US Border. Starting on February, there will be flights twice weekly.

The exodus from Cuba to Central America began late last year when the US and Cuba cozied up to each other, fuelling fears that the US would bring an end to the decades old policy of granting asylum to Cubans - which is known as the "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy.

But the Cubans who are stuck in Belize aren't part of that run for the border yet. First, they have to regularize their status in Belize which means applying for refugee status - which would grant them temporary liberty in Belize - until a hearing is held.

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