14ymedio, Havana, January 16, 2024 – Between investing in the private companies promoted by the regime or launching a “great rescue and family reunification operation,” Cuban emigrants have opted for the latter. This is clear from the Cuba Siglo 21 center, based in Madrid, which in its most recent report estimates that in 2023, the diaspora spent between 1.8 and 2.2 billion dollars on the procedures, travel and maintenance costs of the 560,868 Cubans who left the country for the United States, more than 200,000 of them illegally.
In contrast, remittances experienced a “shocking decline” in the same period: emigrants sent just under 1.973 billion dollars to the Island, the same amount as in 2010. This is a decrease of 3.31% compared to the amount in 2022 – when 2.34 billion dollars were sent – and a scandalous 46% decrease, taking into account the figure of 2019 (3.716 billion dollars). “It is a strong warning sign that the country is losing one of its main sources of income,” says researcher Emilio Morales, author of the report and director of the Havana Consulting Group in Miami.
“Emigration is growing, but remittances are sinking,” Morales summarizes in a formula that was already announced in another of his reports, last October, which commented on the ineffectiveness of the State-run private companies to seduce Cuban-American investors. Without money from abroad, with very little margin of economic freedom and with a spurious task – to provide oxygen to the coffers of the Regime – the destiny of the private companies is to languish until they disappear completely, Cuba Sigla 21 explained at the time.
This massive exodus not only represents the reunification of Cuban families but also the loss of human resources on an unprecedented scale
“This massive exodus not only represents the reunification of Cuban families but also the loss of human re
