28 Cubans Freed from Belize Central Prison

Wilfred Elrington

Twenty-eight Cubans who have been incarcerated at the Belize Central Prison are free. The order was signed today and the directive sent to Prison officials. It is expected that the twenty-eight will now join the mass movement towards the promised-land in the north. Thanks to the ‘wet foot dry foot’ legislation, as soon as they set foot in the U.S., if they get that far, they will become documented residents. Today, Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilfred Elrington told News Five that there is no indication that the Cubans would be interested in sticking around in Belize, and no need to keep them incarcerated here.

Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“He told me that they made an internal decision to issue twenty-eight Cubans who came into the country illegally, who were incarcerated in the prison, and who have in fact served out their time or paid their fines and really should no longer be in our prison…issued an order for them to be released, for them to leave the country – OTL. I think that’s what he said. That is the decision that they made in their own deliberate judgment in the Ministry of Immigration because these people have already paid their fines, served out their time and there’s no point in us keeping them now. It means that they will be released into the community and it is expected, I believe, that they will leave the country and try to get to wherever they intended to go in the first place.”

Mike Rudon

“So it is not a matter where they will be escorted to the border?”

Wilfred Elrington

“No…he told me specifically that they will be released and they will make their way…he said to me they will be released into the community. I don’t think he said more than that. I am assuming that they will in fact make their way to the Mexican border and try to go on because they are trying to get to the United States. Most of them are trying to get to the United States.”