Panama City: Cuban migrants without papers must leave Panama now that the United States has stopped allowing them automatic entry if they set foot on US soil, a top Panamanian official said yesterday.
“They have to get out of Panama” or risk being deported, Javier Carrillo, head of Panama’s migration service, told reporters.
President Barack Obama on Friday announced he was scrapping a 1995 policy known as “wet foot, dry foot” that allowed Cubans without visas automatic entry into the United States if they set foot on US soil.
Those intercepted at sea were sent back to Cuba under the policy, which made passage by land through Central America and Mexico the preferred route for Cuban migrants. Carrillo said his service counted fewer than 100 Cubans who were in Panama without visas.
But their numbers could be much higher because many undocumented migrants move clandestinely, attempting to circumvent a ban put in place by Panama last year.
The Panamanians acted after Nicaragua shut its border to undocumented migrants, which created a backlog of migrants in countries to its south.
