Álvaro Zapata Inza is in ICE custody at the South Texas Detention Facity, in the state of Texas.
Miami, United States. – Cuban doctor Álvaro Zapata Inza is currently under custody of the United States Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE), he confirmed Cubanet Through the official detainee location system Available on the Federal Agency Portal.
Zapata Inza is held in the South Texas Detention facility, in the state of Texas, in ICE custody. Although the Feareral Agency does not need the date of its arrest, the Peruvian newspaper Commerce indicates that he has been detained since June 11.
The situation of Zapata Inza, a specialized doctor in Integral General Medicine, was initially announced by her friend Abigaíl Corzo, who from Cuba has publicly denounced the risk that the doctor runs if she is deported.
“He is the one who calls me from the detention center. I am in Cuba, I have no way to help him from here, and he has no family that can intervene for him,” Corzo said in messages that have circulated on social networks and independent media.
According to Corzo’s testimony, Zapata left a medical mission in Brazil for more than three years and, after a prolonged journey through several countries in South America, he managed to reach the border of Mexico, where he requested international protection. Subsequently, he managed to enter American territory, allegedly under the migratory form I-220A, which ICE usually delivers asylum applicants while waiting for judicial resolution.
However, this data has not been confirmed by the official ICE database, which only shows its current detention, without detailing the type of migratory document with which it entered or the specific reason of its arrest.
According to Abigaíl Corzo, the doctor is in a critical, both legal and emotional situation. In a WhatsApp conversation held between them, to which some media have had access, Zapata himself expressed his despair: “If they deport me, I committed suicide,” he wrote.
“His return to Cuba would imply a sentence, a life under control, without freedom to travel or exercise his profession dignity,” said Corzo, who also indicated that he has contacted several media in the hope that the case will be visible and their deportation is avoided. “I don’t know who to go to. I am desperate,” he insisted.
The detention of Zapata Inza is part of an increasingly common pattern among Cuban doctors who decide to leave the so -called “internationalist missions” of the regime and undertake irregular migration routes to the United States. In many cases, these professionals accepted mechanisms such as I-220A, which, although allowed their temporary release within the country, does not guarantee definitive legal status or automatic protection against deportation.
In recent years, with the increase in arrests and asylum cases, numerous Cuban bearers of I-220A have been in an uncertain legal situation. Some have been arrested after their entry, as part of the strictest immigration control operations by ICE.
So far, ICE has not offered details about this case. Nor has it been confirmed if the doctor faces a deportation order, if his asylum application was denied or if he is still in the process of judicial review. Her friend, from Cuba, has insisted that “he has no lawyers or support networks” in the United States, which aggravates her situation.
ORGANIZATIONS OF DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND CUBAN EXILE have denounced on multiple occasions that medical deserters of missions face reprisals on the island, such as professional disqualification, movement restrictions and political stigmatization.
