MIAMI, United States. – The Vice Minister of Labor and Social Security of Cuba who He recently requested political asylum at the southern border of the United States.Juan Carlos Santana Novoa, will settle in Florida, according to court documents consulted by Martí News.
According to the information obtained by this means, Santana Novoa has scheduled his first preliminary hearing for August 21, 2026, in Orlando, Florida, under the jurisdiction of Judge Benjamin Rosen.
According to Luis Domínguez, a researcher at the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, the former vice minister has two children who reside in the United States, one of whom arrived less than a year ago.
US government sources, who preferred not to reveal their identity, told Martí News that Santana Novoa did not report his position in the Cuban Government when he entered the country.
However, immigration attorney Wilfredo Allen said the former Cuban regime official was honest in presenting his case. “He asked for political asylum, introduced himself and said who he was,” according to Allen.
The lawyer also assured Martí News that if Santana Novoa cooperates with the US authorities, his possibility of obtaining political asylum would increase. “Credibility is key,” added the lawyer, who also assured that any inconsistency in the former vice minister’s story could put his request at risk.
Santana Novoa was named Vice Minister of Labor and Social Security on January 11, 2022, according to the official website of his own entity. Presumably, he still held that position at the time of his entry to the US.
Less than a month ago, on September 4, the Cuban Embassy in Mexico published on Facebook and
After that date, no other reports from the official Cuban press appear involving Santana Novoa. Nor has there been any information about his dismissal.
In the last year, an avalanche of former officials of the Island regime have entered the United States. Just this Monday transcended that former Cuban prosecutor Rosabel Roca Sampedro, known for her role in the conviction of protesters on July 11, 2021 in Camagüey, had entered the North American country and was residing in the state of Texas.
These are not the first cases of (former) Cuban officials arriving in the US and requesting asylum. In August 2024, the former first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in Cienfuegos, Manuel Menendez Castellanosarrived in Miami through a family reunification process. Other known cases are that of Arelys Casañola Quintanaformer president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power on the Isle of Youth, who requested asylum on the southern border of the United States, and that of the judge Melody González Pedrazadetained in Florida while awaiting the resolution of her asylum application.
Furthermore, in April 2024, the Cuban military pilot Luis Raúl González-Pardo Rodríguez came to the US through the parole humanitarian. González-Pardo Rodríguez was involved in the operation that shot down two civilian planes belonging to the Hermanos al Rescate organization in 1996, in which four Cuban-Americans died.
