US and Cuban officials will meet in Washington on Thursday to discuss immigration, officials familiar with the matter told Reuters. These will be the highest-level formal talks between Washington and Havana since President Joe Biden took office last year.

The meeting comes at a time when the US government is dealing with a growing number of migrants trying to cross the border from Mexico, of which Cubans make up a growing share.

The Cuban delegation will be headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío, two sources said.

He is expected to meet with top officials from the US State Department and possibly other agencies in Washington.

The US wants Havana to agree to receive deported migrants, said a US official and another source on condition of anonymity.

The Island Government blames the United States for the rise in irregular migration after the decision of the Donald Trump Administration to close its consular section in Havana after the first cases of “Havana syndrome” were reported.

The regime’s authorities claim to advocate “orderly and safe” migration, while hundreds of thousands of people leave the country after Managua, a close ally of Havana, eliminated the visa requirement for Cubans at the end of 2021.

The US State Department said last month that it would begin processing some visas for Cubans at its Embassy in Havana to start reducing the backlog of immigration paperwork after a four-year hiatus.

“We have seen a significant increase in irregular Cuban immigrants to the United States, both by land and by sea,” a State Department spokesman said in response to questions from Reuters.

“Cubans are currently the second-largest group arriving at the southwestern border of the United States,” he said.

The spokesman declined to confirm the planned meeting, but said “we regularly engage with Cuban officials on issues of importance to the United States government, such as human rights and migration.”

The Cuban government did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters.

Thursday’s talks, however, appear to be at a higher level than previous formal contacts since US President Joe Biden took office last year.

The Washington meeting is scheduled just a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his regional peers hold a conference on migration in Panama, to which Havana was not invited.

The number of Cubans apprehended at the US-Mexico border soared to 16,531 in February, the highest total recorded in a single month, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.

The average number of Cubans found at the border in seven days rose from about 600 on February 26 to 1,300 on April 16, according to internal US statistics.