More than 10% of Cuba’s population left the island nation between 2022 and 2023, prompted by a severe economic downturn and a widening government crackdown.

Despite allowing the creation of private businesses for the first time in decades, the country’s state-run economy has collapsed as growth in Venezuela and Russia, on which Cuba relies, has slowed in recent years.

But Cuban migrants are faced with host nations that are increasingly hostile to migration: Both Europe and North America have tightened their restrictions on foreign labor, even as they depend on workers to fill shortages, a move that could prove “immensely damaging to [their] economies,” The Economist argued.