MIAMI, United States. – Aruba Airlines cancelled the sale of tickets for its flights between Cuba and Nicaragua, according to Telemundo 51 news station reporter Alexis Boentes on his social media.
Although initially, Boentes assured his audience that the information was circulating among online ticket-sales agents, he commented on his own publication that he had contacted Aruba Airlines’ office in Miami and had confirmed the cancellation of ticket sales.
He added that the airline will only operate flights that were already sold.
Last Friday, it was made known that Dominican airline Air Century had ceased to operate its charter flights between Cuba and Nicaragua as a result of the recent measures announced by the U.S. Department of State.
A note on the reporter portal indicates that cancellation of this route is part of a U.S. strategy to halt the high migration of Cubans to the United States.
“They have realized that this is where it all originates, the source from where all these immigrants come who then travel across Central America and into Mexico, and then cross the southern U.S. border,” immigration attorney Jesús Novo stated to Telemundo 51.
This expert also warned that in spite of airline cancellations, Cubans will continue searching for a way to leave their country, because the situation in the island is unbearable.
Flight cancellations between Havana and Managua were first announced right after the U.S. Department of State made public the new measures. These represent a new policy of visa restrictions aimed at individuals involved in the operation of charter flights to Nicaragua, a route that is frequently used by irregular migrants.
According to a communique issued by spokesman Matthew Miller, these charter-flight companies are “offering flights and charging extortion-level prices” that lead migrants to a “dangerous land route toward the United States border.”
The State Department also expressed concern about how these charter flights and their operators “endanger the lives of these migrants,” and it points out that the migrants lack “a legal base for entering or remaining in the United States” and are frequently “returned to their countries of origin having wasted significant personal resources and putting themselves and their families at risk.” According to the State Department, as part of an integral approach to address irregular migration, Washington is implementing the visa restrictions under Section INA 212(a)(3)(C) against “owners, executives and/or high-level officers of companies that provide charter flights to Nicaragua designed primarily for irregular migrants to the United States.”
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