The U.S. State Department has named Benjamin Ziff, a career diplomat who was in charge of the agency’s migration policies for Latin America and the Caribbean, as the new chief of mission for the American Embassy in Havana.
In a statement Monday, the embassy said Ziff assumed the role of chargé d’affaires on July 15. Previously, he headed a working group responsible for coordinating the department’s migration policy and strategy for the Western Hemisphere. He has been a deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs and deputy director of the Office of Central American Affairs, among several other posts at U.S. embassies around the world, including Colombia and Venezuela.
The appointment comes when the island is the origin of a massive exodus of Cubans trying to reach the U.S. by land and sea. According to the latest data, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 157,339 detentions of Cubans at the borders nationwide between October last year and June.
