Cuban Deputy Minister Juan Carlos Santos Novoa requested a CBP One appointment with a group of migrants of that nationality in Arizona. At least four other officials or members of the Cuban Communist Party have requested asylum or have benefited from family reunification processes in the United States.
The Vice Minister of Labor and Social Security of Cuba, Juan Carlos Santana Novoa, requested political asylum this Monday at the border in Nogales, Arizona, and is free in the United States.
This was confirmed by government sources and immigrants who accompanied the vice minister to Martí News.
«We had no idea who that man was until the moment we arrived at the border and they called him by name. We were eight Cubans in the group. “He was in Tamaulipas and asked us to join him to make the CBP One appointment,” Yureide Aldana, one of the migrants who accompanied the vice minister, told the media.
Migrants often join groups by nationality to obtain appointments with CBP One, a federal program that allows people to schedule their arrival at the border to request political asylum.
According to government sources, Vice Minister Santana Novoa was released and has a date to appear in court on August 21, 2026 at 8:30 am According to a Facebook post from the Cuban Embassy in Mexico, dated August 4 September, the Cuban official would participate in the panel titled “Structural Reforms and Longevity” of the I Technical Summit of the American Social Security Commissions, which would take place in Mexico City.
The group of migrants commented that Santana Novoa never revealed to them what his position in Cuba was. «We were always joking with him, telling him that he looked like a Cuban leader, but we didn’t know who he really was. In fact, he told us that he missed a CBP One appointment because he was in Cuba and was very mysterious with everything related to his family and his past,” said Yeima González.
They pointed out that he was the only person accepted to enter the United States. Documents to schedule the CBP One appointment provided by the immigrants show that both the names and date of birth of Santana Novoa match that of the vice minister.
This year Martí News has documented the asylum and reunification requests of four other officials or members of the Cuban Communist Party, such as Manuel Menéndez Castellanos, a leader from Cienfuegos who arrived in Miami in August for a family reunification process.
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