As the Caribbean nation steps up its crackdown on its residents and the crisis at the southern border of the United States worsens, the number of people leaving Cuba for the United States has reached an all-time high this year. 

According to Agence France-Presse, border officials observed more than 227,000 Cubans attempting to enter the country illegally between December 2021 and 2022, which is the greatest migration in recorded history. 

According to Jorge Duany of Florida International University, the 227,000 persons are more than the two previous great exodus events, when 125,000 Cubans departed for the United States in 1980 and 34,000 did so in 1994. 

In comparison to the entire year 2021 and five times the entire year 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped Cubans more than 79,800 times from October through March of last year. The Border Patrol stopped immigrants of all nationalities more than 209,000 times in total in March, the most in a single month in 22 years.