Jorge Legañoa Alonso, an official spokesperson, tried to normalize Ferrer’s departure from Cuba on national television. Two days later, he was promoted by the regime.
MIAMI, United States. – The State Department denied that the release and exile of Cuban opponent José Daniel Ferrer were part of an “exchange” with Washington, as suggested by the island’s state television. The US Government assured that there was no “negotiation or compensation” and that Ferrer’s departure for Miami occurred after his decision to go into exile and the facilitation of his entry by the US.
“As José Daniel Ferrer himself declared, the regime forced him into exile. (…) The Trump Administration repeatedly demanded the release of Ferrer and all political prisoners detained by the dictatorship. Once Ferrer made the difficult decision to leave Cuba, the US Government facilitated his entry into our country,” he told Martí News an unidentified State Department spokesperson.
The official version was broadcast on Cuban Television by journalist Jorge Legañoa Alonso, who stated that the US had delivered “wanted criminals” to Cuba on deportation flights. “As part of these exchanges, the United States has delivered to Cuba some criminals wanted by our authorities for having accounts with justice on deportation flights. Recently, one of these fugitives arrived in Havana. I reserve the name, but he was serving a 20-year prison sentence when he went to the United States,” Legañoa said in prime time.
State Department sources consulted by Martí News They categorically denied that narrative. “If the illegitimate regime has a problem, it knows how to send a formal request,” said the spokesperson consulted. And he added: “We continue to demand the release of all political prisoners unjustly detained by the regime and urge the international community to join us in holding it accountable for its brutal repression against the Cuban people.”
USA repatriation flights to Cuba resumed on April 24, 2023, a measure that impacts Cuban nationals with final expulsion orders. Federal agencies have since reiterated that processing of removals for Cubans continues under current immigration law (Title 8).
According to judicial documentation and sources cited by Martí Newsthe man that state television avoided naming is Giamny Santos Chávez, a Cuban with a history in the United States whose immigration situation led to a deportation, not a negotiated extradition.
According to the journalistic investigation, Santos Chávez accumulated cases in Florida and was the subject of criminal proceedings. Furthermore, figure a federal conviction upheld by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2009 for failure to obey an order to stop a vessel.
US authorities do not report “exchanges” of fugitives with Cuba. Instead, public evidence points to administrative deportations of people with final removal orders, in line with Immigration and Customs Enforcement announcements (ICE) and the precedents of repatriation flights restored from 2023.
While the official narrative in Havana presents the arrival of deportees as an achievement, Cuba keeps fugitives claimed by US justice in its territory. The FBI kept Joanne Deborah Chesimard (Assata Shakur) on its list of “most wanted terrorists” until the Cuban regime announced his deathon September 26. The US House of Representatives repeatedly urged the extradition of Chesimard and William Morales, former explosives chief of the FALN group, as well as other fugitives with “safe refuge” on the Island.
After his television intervention, Jorge Legañoa Alonso was appointed president of the state agency Prensa Latina, according to reported the Cuban Government’s own Institute of Information and Social Communication. The institutional profile highlights that Legañoa has been an analyst of the Television News and show host Just the truth, from which the version of the supposed “exchange” was spread.
