Home run Cubans seek a better life with softball in Brazil

If he had been able to choose, Roberto Hernandez Tello, 59, would have gone to the United States last May, when he left Cuba in search of a better life. But because of Donald Trump's anti-immigration policies, he ended up in Curitiba, in southern Brazil, 3,940 miles from his native Camagüey.

- Tiago Rogero

Thousands of his compatriots have arrived in Brazil this year, contributing to a shift in which, for the first time, more Cubans than Venezuelans are applying for asylum in Latin America's largest country. "I love Cuba, but with the crisis it's impossible to live there now," said Tello.

"I have a 31-year-old son who lives in the US. But since Trump scrapped the parole, I chose to come to Brazil," he added, referring to the US president's elimination of the humanitarian programme known as CHNV, which had benefited migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

For years, Venezuela's political and economic crises have driven people out of the country, creating a diaspora of nearly 8 million. As of June this year, though, Brazil has had twice as many asylum requests from Cubans, at 19,419, compared with Venezuelans, at 9,850.