HAVANA TIMES – Most of them are men, carrying only a small backpack as luggage. The line to check in at the Conviasa counter at Havana’s Jose Marti airport moves quickly. The flight goes direct to Managua, but the Nicaraguan capital is only the gateway to a route that will reach the southern border of the United States. Despite the recent sanctions imposed by Washington on the owners and executive of airlines that profit from the Cuban immigration drama, the planes continue to take off towards Nicaragua.
A few days ago Marco de Jesus’s world fell apart. With the tickets, for him and his brother, already purchased from the Dominican company Air Century to travel to Managua, a brief email notified them of the cancellation of that connection. It was one of the first companies to react to the new US visa restriction policy aimed at the airline companies that have been selling migrants from the Island tickets to Central America at “extortion” prices.
For this 38-year-old Havana native, the US penalty could not have come at a worse time. After selling his home and an
