Why Are So Many Cubans Migrating to Guyana?

Every day scenes like this play out at this airport. Everyone reuniting here is Cuban. They’re part of a wave of migrants heading to a surprising place: Guyana. Guyana is a tiny country in South America where the official language is English. It’s also one of the few countries that Cuban citizens are free to fly to without a prior visa. Thousands of them are coming here, as the country’s crisis worsens. Food shortages and dayslong power blackouts have been deepened by a U.S. oil blockade that’s lasted months. But they’re also landing in a place with its own set of issues. Yarina Ramos and her two daughters got here a month ago. Back in Cuba, Yarina kept seeing Facebook videos about Guyana. That’s David Orret Cisneros. He’s become a local celebrity with his videos about Cuban life in Guyana. And he’s also made a business out of facilitating travel here for Cubans. Cubans are desperate to come here in part because the economy has been supercharged by the same thing driving people out of Cuba: oil. A few years ago, a massive amount of oil was discovered offshore here. That’s transformed Guyana from one of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest countries to having the world’s fastest- growing G.D.P. The Guyanese government has built a system to register migrant workers, but many Cubans aren’t part of it. And that’s created a massive, unofficial labor force. This labor force has become critical to the economic boom here. “Construction sectors, the migrants are doing. Security guards, the migrants are doing. Cleaning — We need the migrants as much as the migrants need us, and they are really filling huge gaps in the system.” Cuban workers line up in the street daily looking for work that’s often inconsistent and low paying. Edrianis Bustamante Torres and Yordenis Flores Hidalgo just gave birth to their third child and sometimes wonder if they made the right decision. The Guyanese government did not respond to questions about the overall number of Cuban migrants here, but it’s clear they’ve put a strain on the system. Is Guyana prepared for this influx of migrants? “No, I don’t think we are. We have a long way to go before we can say that we are ready for migrants in a holistic way.” That’s leaving many of the Cubans who come here in limbo.