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WhatsApp groups run by recruiters and coyotes are common in Cuba. In them, it is possible to find offers from irregular travel agencies that help residents leave the country without travel visas — a mission that is nearly impossible for Cubans.
Where Florida was once the main destination, home to the largest Cuban diaspora in the world, Donald Trump’s return to the White House made migration to the United States more difficult and placed Brazil on the escape route. In 2025, nearly 42,000 Cubans applied for asylum in Brazil, double the previous year and more than 30 times the number from a decade earlier. Citizens of the island became the largest group of asylum seekers, surpassing Venezuelans.
Meanwhile, the International Traffic System, managed by the Federal Police (PF), which records when a foreigner enters the country through a land or air border, registered 21,600 Cuban entries last year, indicating that migrants may be entering Brazil without passing through official checkpoints, in an evasion of migration control.
In the case of asylum, the registration is recorded according to the year in which the immigrant files the request, which may occur after entry into the country. Over the past decade, however, no year recorded such a large gap between asylum requests and official entries of Cubans into Brazil. In other years, there were more recorded entries than asylum requests, showing that migrants were arriving legally but not seeking refugee status.
Migrant smuggling networks see Brazil as a dream destination: with a welcoming migration policy since the second half of the 1990s, the country allows asylum seekers access to rights such as healthcare, work and education while awaiting the review of their applications. Coyote networks tend to seek unmonitored border points, such as so-called “trochas” (trails and shortcuts through vegetation used to bypass checkpoints) in the city of Pacaraima (RR), on the border with Venezuela, to carry out the crossing of Cubans. These may be bridges, forest areas or simply checkpoints without the presence of the Federal Police or other authorities. Once in the country, these immigrants tend to apply for asylum immediately. Like administrative agents, coyotes even provide guidance on the procedures that must be carried out with the Federal Police.
The Federal Police state that they have carried out 113 operations to combat migrant smuggling over the past four years, half of them last year alone, and have identified 137 victims of the crime, all of them foreigners. The institution, however, says it does not collect data on the nationality of these individuals, a key element for designing anti-crime policies. The information was obtained by the report through the Access to Information Law.
Amid constant economic collapse, intensified since the beginning of this year with the end of Venezuelan support, Cuba is experiencing a historic population exodus. Migration routes change from time to time to, in the language of the coyotes, avoid points that are already “burned” — meaning places where local authorities have begun acting to curb these flows.
Until 2025, Cubans first flew to Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, where a coyote would wait to transport them overland through the Amazon to French Guiana. From there, they crossed into Brazil via Oiapoque (AP), the city that recorded the highest number of Cuban entries into Brazilian territory last year. In recent weeks, exceptionally, many flights have been canceled, leading to frustration among Cubans. Planes have been unable to take off due to the drastic drop in fuel supply over the past two months, when Venezuela, the main supplier, virtually halted its shipments.
Cuban Juán Ariel Saldivar, 53, says that when he was approached by Cuban security agents and informally accused of “haber jodido mucho” (a vulgar expression that can be translated as having caused a lot of trouble), he was advised to leave the island if he did not want to be arrested. He then sought out coyotes: “Without a visa, it was the only way to leave the country.”
The solution was to fly to Suriname at the end of 2024, where he reports seeing coyotes bribe local police officers with US$50, and from there be transported in vans with about eight people to French Guiana and then to Brazil, via Oiapoque. From there, he embarked on a five-day boat journey to Manaus. Total cost: US$1,150.
Like many others, however, Juán saw Brazil only as a transit corridor. He stayed in the country for three months and, bothered by the low wages working at a car wash and by alleged unpaid wages from his employer during the final settlement, decided to leave for another destination frequently mentioned in coyote groups: Uruguay.
While at least 21,600 Cubans entered Brazil in 2025, nearly 15,000 left. The data are not individualized by person (therefore they may count the same migrant’s entries and exits multiple times) but they provide an important overview: a large portion of Cubans do not arrive intending to stay.
The main exit point is Santana do Livramento (RS), a small border city where it is difficult to determine exactly where Brazil ends and Uruguay’s Rivera begins. Through that crossing, 5,400 Cubans left Brazil last year alone.
Thus, while in Brazil, Cubans may save money before attempting to migrate again. The country also does not have deportation policies for immigrants, even for those who do not regularize their status.
Brazil, however, has become more cautious in granting visas to Cubans over at least the past three years, when migration flows triggered concern. According to the law, and since there is no visa waiver agreement between the countries, island residents must prove means of subsistence for the period they claim they will remain in Brazil (an unimaginable task for most). They then turn to coyotes, who advise migrants to first travel to neighboring countries that exceptionally do not require tourist visas. Guyana has been the main one.
Immersed in an oil boom since 2015, following the discovery of vast offshore reserves, Guyana has an interest in receiving Cubans who arrive through its capital, Georgetown. Some remain and work in the construction sector, which is expanding due to increased infrastructure demand. The vast majority, however, continue on to Brazil.
With prices ranging from US$1,000 to US$4,000, many packages include flights on Caribbean airlines such as Dominican-based Sky High and InterCaribbean. The package includes the flight to Guyana and ground transportation to Brazil, most often to Boa Vista, capital of Roraima.
As in Brazil, Cubans have also become the largest group of asylum seekers in Uruguay. Last year alone, the neighboring country registered 15,000 applications. Immigrants report seeking the country because of the shared language, Spanish, Uruguay’s reputation for having a developed welfare state, and the speed of obtaining documents.
The significant increase in migration has also transformed this reality. “The immigrant legalization process used to be fast, but now it has collapsed because the number of migrants arriving in the ‘paisito’ is very large,” says Yanitze Gutiérrez Malave, a Venezuelan and founder of UruVene, an organization that has supported migrants in the country of 3.4 million inhabitants for eight years.
Juan Ignacio Mondelli, head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) office in Uruguay, explains that increasingly Cuban families have migrated in groups of four or five people, in collective crossings with coyotes that can cost up to US$15,000 in total.
While cases of xenophobia are rare, he says, integration is not easy: Montevideo is one of the most expensive cities in Latin America, and many qualified immigrants end up working as delivery drivers for long periods before being able to validate their degrees.
The Uruguayan government views migration positively. A migration authority close to President Yamandú Orsi told the report that the country’s goal is to facilitate the entry of Cubans who already have relatives living in Uruguay. The possibility of traveling with family reunification visas prevents these individuals from resorting to coyotes to reach Montevideo. For that, however, it would be necessary to increase the capacity of the country’s embassy in Havana, which has been difficult due to the island’s supply crisis.
The same authority mentions that without immigrants, Uruguay’s population would already be declining. In 2023, when the latest census was released, the population had grown less than 1% over 12 years. Immigrants have also increasingly contributed to the social security system, a challenge for the local administration given the aging population. In 2025, the country recorded more deaths than births.
Uncertainty about what will happen in Cuba in the coming weeks with the end of Venezuelan support and pressure from the United States creates doubt about the future of migration flows. In many other moments, migration has been used as a safety valve for the communist regime, allowing more Cubans to leave to relieve domestic pressure. With fewer and fewer flights, however, leaving the island has become increasingly difficult.
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