What are state- or sector-level impacts (Border Patrol sectors, ports of entry) on Cuban migration and removals in 2023–2025?

1. Shifting routes: air departures, Guyana gateways and the “Walking Generation”

Cuban migrants used multiple corridors in 2023–2025: many flew from Havana to Nicaragua or Guyana then traveled overland through South and Central America toward the U.S., while others used maritime and direct irregular crossings. Analysts label the recent overland surge the “Walking Generation” and count hundreds of thousands who trekked from South and Central America to the U.S. (514,255 cited) — underlining that migration pressure was dispersed across transit countries and into different U.S. arrival points rather than concentrated in one border sector ^{[1] [3]}.

2. Ports of entry and CBP One: a rerouting into official lanes and POE encounters

U.S. use of CBP One to schedule appointments at ports of entry produced large recorded volumes: CBP processed almost 44,000 people in December 2024 via appointments and tallied over 936,500 scheduled appointments from Jan 2023–Dec 2024; Cuban nationals were among the top nationalities processed through the app, moving many intended arrivals into POE processing rather than between-POE land crossings ^{[2] [5]}. DHS argued this led to more CHNV nationals being placed into removal proceedings via POEs — encounters at and between southwest border POEs rose sharply in 2023–2024, in part because of CBP One ^[4].

3. Border Patrol sectors: southwest border vs. interior/roving operations

Policy and enforcement changes affected sector workloads unevenly. After parole and scheduling programs were active, southwest Border Patrol encounters of CHNV nationals between ports of entry dropped, but encounters at POEs rose — meaning enforcement and processing burdens shifted from “between POE” interdictions in some Border Patrol sectors to POE processing and immigration courts ^[4]. Separately, Border Patrol has been deployed for interior operations (e.g., high-profile operations in U.S. cities later reported in 2025), showing resources and removals are not limited to border sectors but extend to interior enforcement teams ^{[6] [7]}.

4. Removals, deportation flights and Cuban acceptance

Bilateral migration accords and negotiation influenced removals: the U.S. resumed ICE/ICE-adjacent deportation flights to Cuba in April 2023 and has continued monthly flights, returning hundreds of Cubans according to WOLA reporting; some Cuban authorities have accepted repatriations while warning large-scale deportations of parolees were not envisioned in past accords ^{[3] [8]}. Reporting also notes that relatively few migrants were returned from the U.S. overall compared with arrivals — e.g., 978 returned to Cuba in one 2024 tally — indicating logistical and diplomatic constraints to mass removals at sector or POE scale ^[9].

5. How policy reversals reshaped flows in 2024–2025

Policy changes after 2023 created inverse incentives: the Biden-era humanitarian parole programs and expanded visa processing created lawful air routes and reduced some irregular crossings (per DHS/CBP claims), while the March 2025 Federal Register action and later termination of CHNV parole processes sought to end those categorical parole pathways and reallocate arrivals into removal processes or deter crossings; these shifts correspond with reported drops in irregular crossings in early 2025 in some datasets and media accounts ^{[4] [10] [11]}. Sources disagree on magnitude and timing — some Cuban- and exile-focused outlets report continued massive departures, while DHS data emphasize reductions in between-POE crossings and large POE appointment volumes ^{[1] [4] [5]}.

6. Data limits and competing narratives

Estimates of total departures vary widely across reporters and analysts: some sources report “more than 850,000” Cubans to the U.S. in 2022–Sep 2023 or more than a million leaving Cuba between 2022–2023, while academic and IOM figures give different stock and flow totals; CBP statistics emphasize appointments and encounter changes tied to program mechanics ^{[3] [12] [9] [13]}. Available sources do not provide a unified, sector-by-sector tabulation of Border Patrol sectors or each POE’s removal counts for 2023–2025; therefore, fine-grained sector impacts must be inferred from program-level and national CBP/ICE reporting rather than from explicit sector-level published tallies (not found in current reporting).

7. Bottom line for policymakers and practitioners

At scale, U.S. policy tools (humanitarian parole, CBP One appointments, changes to CHNV parole status, and enforcement rules) have redistributed migrant flows between ports of entry, between-POE crossings, and interior enforcement, with corresponding operational effects on CBP processing and ICE removals; the clearest documented shifts are the surge in POE scheduling/processing via CBP One and the later policy-driven reduction of irregular between-POE encounters ^{[2] [4]}. Readers should treat headline totals (hundreds of thousands vs. over a million) cautiously: the numbers differ by source and methodology, and no single source in the set gives a definitive sector-by-sector removal ledger for 2023–2025 ^{[1] [12] [4]}.