The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) released this Saturday at least 40 Cubans with a deportation letter who were detained last week when they were serving their immigration appointment, reported on their social networks Democratic Senator Annette Taddeo after contacting personnel from the Joe Biden Administration. “Now we have to make sure this never happens again.”
Taddeo, who is running with Republican María Elvira Salazar for the seat in Florida’s 27th District, urged Democrats and Republicans to “stay united with the Cuban exile community.”
“They reviewed my case and told me they didn’t know why I was in prison, because I don’t have a crime on the street, I don’t have a crime of anything,” Yariel Pérez, the first Cuban freed, told Telemundo 51 Miami. “I was going to work. At six in the morning (Monday) Immigration caught me without explanation of anything, they put me in jail until today.”
“Everyone will be released,” Pérez told relatives of other Cubans outside the Krome Detention Center, who noticed they had ankle tags attached.
José Manuel Martínez, another of the detained Cubans, was surprised. “I have my credible fear approved, I was persecuted by the Cuban government, when the credible fear was approved. I am checked in the first box,” he explained that “the US government admits that I am inside through a Parole That was given to me by ICE signed by an officer and seen and approved by an immigration judge.”
“They reviewed my case and told me they didn’t know why I was in prison, because I don’t have a crime on the street, I don’t have a crime of anything,” said Yariel Pérez, the first Cuban freed.
Immigration Attorney Wilfredo Allen told América TeVé that he was aware that in Florida, New Jersey and Arizona there were Cubans with the i220b category who tonight fear being deported to Cuba. The lawyer clarified that it is a supervision order, but not a “legal entry” and always carries the “risk of deportation.”
Allen specified that Cubans always have one last defense: File a motion for “suspension of deportation” that is requested through Form I-246, for which he recommended going with a lawyer to the immigration appointment.
The detention of Cubans and the threat of deportation generated uncertainty, because the expulsion from the US to the Island on ICE flights was suspended in December 2020. The Cuban government has refused to accept it, even despite the fact that last April, the Biden Administration asked to accept the deportees in exchange for processing the visas in Havana.
The Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar and the Democrat Annette Taddeo joined the demands of relatives and other local politicians for the Cuban nationals to be released, a situation that began on Saturday night and was considered “a great victory” of the exile by journalist Mario J. Penton.
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