The 36 Cubans who were deported to Havana this Thursday from the Miami International Airport “they will not be able to return to the United States” in the next five years. According to a brief statement issued by the diplomatic headquarters of the North American country on the island, these migrants made “a trip in vain.”
Reinier Gutiérrez, one of the returned Cubans, arrived in the US in 2020. His wife, Roxana Maldonado, counted to the América TeVé chain that on May 11 he was arrested when he appeared in Miramar on what was supposed to be a routine visit.
Last Wednesday Maldonado was notified that her husband had “denied the deportation strike since June 13.” That same day, Reinier phoned her from the Krome Detention Center to tell her that her belongings had been taken from her. “I already knew that that meant deportation.”
The family is devastated. He’s been here all his life,” Maldonado stressed. In the US, this Cuban leaves behind his wife and two of his children, one of them just three months old.
“From there they took me to a cooler to Miami where I stayed for four days” until they transferred him to an Immigration Detention Center in Louisiana
All the migrants included in this third air operation are men, the Cuban Ministry of the Interior specified. Thirteen of them had left the Island illegally by sea, while the other 23 traveled abroad legally and then joined irregular routes to reach the United States.
The police statement of one of the rafters in the group was broadcast on the island’s state television. In it, the migrant assured that he did not pass the credible fear interview because on the island he was never subjected to “torture or persecution.”
This Cuban, who omitted his name, said that on December 30 he left the island along with 24 other people through Playa Baracoa. “I arrived at Cayo Marquesas the first day at half past five in the morning.” According to his version, they remained at the landing site for four days until they were picked up. “From there they took me to a cooler to Miami where I stayed for four days” until they transferred him to an Immigration Detention Center in Louisiana.
This native of the Island explained that “for a simple nonsense” he was detained for ten months and “to top it off” he was deported. “I don’t know why the United States has turned its back on me like that after having sacrificed so much. I don’t know, they are doing things very badly. Many people with felony release them onto the street.”
The journalist Mario Vallejo shared on his Facebook account the video of the landing of these rafters. “This is a dream,” they said, while some recounted the journey and others cooked fish to eat.
Another of the Cubans deported, who also did not provide his name, told Univisión 23 Miami journalist Javier Díaz that he had the parole order known as I-220A and even so he was deported on the flight that took off this Thursday at 11 a.m. tomorrow from Miami. “I’ve lost everything overnight,” he lamented.
Returns by air between Cuba and the US remained suspended since December 2020 until both countries agreed last November to resume deportation flights for “inadmissible” migrants held at the border with Mexico.
The first Cubans returned after the resumption of flights were 123 who arrived in Havana on April 24, and another group of 66 was returned in a second operation air last May 10.
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