MADRID, Spain.- The Cuban Yuniel Castillo, a worker at the José Martí International Airport who managed to leave Cuba as one more passenger, although he did not have a ticket, on a flight of the American company JetBlue bound for Miami, faces deportation after six months of being detained at an immigration center in Broward County.
The case had not come to light until this Thursday, when Castillo spoke about his situation with Mario Vallejo, a journalist from Univision.
Yuniel worked at the International Airport of #Havana José Martí and managed to get to the US on a JetBlue plane, sitting down, as if he were another passenger. https://t.co/AGxnNUQzeP
– Univision 23 Miami (@Univision23) November 23, 2022
“I arrived six months ago. I came by plane, hidden in a plane. I worked at the airport. They have kept me here all this time, ”she explained in a telephone interview with Univisión.
Now a judge gave him a deportation order that, if effective, would sentence him to several years in prison in Cuba.
“They have interviewed me and everything. I already finished my last cut. The judge issued a deportation order,” Castillo explained.
“If I come to Cuba, they can throw me more than 25 years in prison for having deserted, for having hidden in a plane. I have a small child and I am uncertain of what could happen to me. All of us here have that fear,” he said.
This case is reminiscent of Yunier Garcia Duartethe young Cuban stowaway who arrived in the city of Miami in August 2019 hidden in the cargo compartment of a charter flight from the Swift Air company, which had left 45 minutes earlier from the José Martí International Airport in Havana, where García Duarte worked as a porter.
García Duarte was released after an immigration judge granted him political asylum.
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