For the first time in four years, the US and Cuba have held direct high-level diplomatic talks on migration.
Among other things, it was about the implementation of existing immigration agreements, the US State Department said on Thursday evening (local time).
The number of Cubans trying to enter the United States illegally has increased significantly, spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
This underlines the urgency of the talks in Washington.
According to US Border Patrol agents, officers in March apprehended more than 32,000 Cubans attempting to enter the United States illegally.
That was about twice as many as in February.
The State Department in Washington said it had to be about enabling safe, legal and orderly migration.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry criticized the United States for not sticking to a bilateral agreement that guarantees 20,000 visas for Cubans a year.
In addition, American sanctions, such as the embargo against the socialist Caribbean island that has existed for decades, promoted illegal migration.
During his tenure, President Donald Trump scaled back a rapprochement with Cuba initiated by his predecessor Barack Obama.
According to the Foreign Ministry in Washington, talks with Cuba's Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío also included a limited resumption of consular services and thus, among other things, the issuing of visas at the American Embassy in Havana.
The embassy staff was reduced to a minimum years ago because of the so-called Havana syndrome.
Dozens of American diplomats and their families living in the Cuban capital had been complaining of mysterious headaches, hearing loss, dizziness and nausea since 2016.
Similar complaints were later reported elsewhere in the world.
A February report by US intelligence agencies said some cases of "Havana Syndrome" may have been deliberately triggered by some form of electromagnetic radiation.