Quito, Ecuador.-Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa ratified that all human rights of the 121 Cuban citizens that were deported recently, because they had stayed in this South American country in an irregular situation, were respected.

It is not that these Cuban citizens were going to settle in our country. They were in transit to reach the United States. Thus, they were pushing hard for Mexico to give them visa. According to an US law that was passed in the ’60s that established that if a Cuban citizen steps on US soil, they have to give him/her residence or something like that, he explained today in his radio show Enlace Ciudadano (Citizen Link).

In this reference, he added that to take advantage of that legislation, they use Ecuador as a path to go to Mexico and cross the border with the United States from there and that cannot be allowed.

We welcome here everyone that wants to reside in this wonderful country. We believe in human mobility. We believe in universal citizenship, but we are not going to allow being used for human trafficking by anybody. We are not going to become a coyote country, he warned.

During July 9, 11 and 13, three groups of 29, 46 and 47 citizens of that Caribbean country were deported to Cuba. They were staying illegally in Ecuador.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry reported that the process was carried out according to the legislation of both countries and the valid international law for this kind of situation. He also made Washington’s Government and its migratory policy responsible for the situation of those Cuban citizens, who abandoned their country of origin illegally, but trying to reach US territory illegally, stimulated by the wet foot-dry foot policy, the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program and the Cuban Adjustment Act.

All those regulations grant a selective and unique treatment to Cubans and are a violation of the migratory agreements between both countries, Havana’s authorities said.

The Cuban embassy in Quito reaffirmed the national Government’s commitment to legal, safe and organized migration, and held that it would maintain its support to those who want to return, as along as they leave Cuba legally and observe the current migratory legislation.