{"id":452367,"date":"2026-02-06T10:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452367\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T10:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:57:08","slug":"its-been-brutal-cubans-caught-in-crosshairs-of-trumps-deportation-push-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452367\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s been brutal\u2019: Cubans caught in crosshairs of Trump\u2019s deportation push | Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Rosaly Est\u00e9vez \u201cself-deported\u201d from Miami<\/a> to Havana last November, US immigration officers bid farewell by removing her ankle monitor. The 32-year-old had been told she was about to be detained, so she left with her three-year-old son, Dylan, a US citizen.<\/p>\n

Heidy S\u00e1nchez, 43, wasn\u2019t given a choice. She was forcibly removed from Florida<\/a> last April but, worrying about Cuba<\/a>\u2019s failing healthcare system, she left her two-year-old daughter, Kaylin, behind with her American husband, Carlos.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy little girl was still breastfeeding,\u201d she said. \u201cWaiting to get on the plane, my breasts were swollen, and I kept saying, \u2018Kaylin must be hungry.\u2019\u201d S\u00e1nchez had struggled for years to conceive and Kaylin is her only child.<\/p>\n

Neither woman has a criminal record, but both have been caught up in the US government\u2019s push to deport Cuban immigrants. Now they each live in small towns south of the Cuban capital of Havana, passing their days talking to lawyers and family in the US.<\/p>\n

\"ARosaly Est\u00e9vez. Photograph: Rosaly Est\u00e9vez<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been brutal,\u201d said Est\u00e9vez. \u201cImagine Dylan hugging his phone every night when he sees his dad. I wouldn\u2019t wish this on any mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the US government heaps pressure on Cuba<\/a>, cutting off access to its oil shipments, Donald Trump has framed the campaign as an effort to make the island safe for Cuban Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people that live in our country are treated very badly by Cuba<\/a>,\u201d Trump said recently. \u201cThey all voted for me, and we want them to be treated well. We\u2019d like to be able to have them go back to a home in their country, where they haven\u2019t seen their family, their country for many, many decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heidy S\u00e1nchez\u2019s husband, Carlos Valle, and their daughter, Kaylin, at a vigil to protest against her deportation to Cuba by US immigration authorities. Photograph: Dave Decker\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the likes of Est\u00e9vez and S\u00e1nchez he was talking about.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike many of the president\u2019s statements on Cuba, it\u2019s difficult to know exactly what he\u2019s referring to,\u201d said Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban and Cuban-American studies at the University of Miami<\/a>. \u201cCuban-Americans who left decades ago are perhaps among the least likely to want to return full-time to a future Cuba, though they could certainly play a role as investors in the future economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nativist sentiment in Trump\u2019s statement landed among an already spooked exile community. About 2.9 million Cubans have moved to the US since the 1959 revolution, in a series of waves \u2013 the largest the most recent, due to the collapse of the Cuban economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cubans have traditionally enjoyed a privileged position in the US compared with other Latin American immigrants, thanks to fast-track routes to residency and citizenship. Nearly all those have now closed and some, such as a parole introduced by the Biden administration, have been reversed, meaning those who had arrived legally now face deportation.<\/p>\n

Although ICE isn\u2019t seen on the streets in Florida \u2013 the state being Republican-run \u2013 its agents still exert huge pressure. Currently, about 45,000 Cubans across the US are believed to have been issued with deportation orders, with another 550,000 vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Ernesto P\u00e9rez \u2013 not his real name \u2013 crossed the Texas border in 2019 and was held in detention for 15 days, then made his way to Florida.<\/p>\n

He is one of the vulnerable people: waiting for his asylum claim to be heard, living with his girlfriend who is similarly anxious about her immigration status. \u201cWe have tried to switch to working at home, and we try not to go out at weekends or have any regular life activities,\u201d he said. \u201cMost of my friends here are in the same situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is one of 850,000 Cubans who have arrived in the US in the last four years, putting pressure on the Cuban American community while draining Cuba itself of its best and brightest. The sheer numbers of new arrivals mean the latest generation of immigrants is now facing prejudice from those who came before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who have been here for many years look at the new generation and say, \u2018Who are these people?\u2019\u201d said Pedro Freyre, a leading Miami attorney, whose family fled Castro\u2019s revolution in 1959. \u201cThey say, \u2018They don\u2019t even sound like us. They have different values.\u2019 So if they get picked up [by ICE], the stock response is \u2018We came here legally.\u2019 You hear that a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Trump\u2019s latest words can be read to suggest he ultimately wants to rid the US of Cuban Americans, his increasingly deep connections in Florida mean he has many Cuban American supporters. He has handed US ambassadorships to Spain, Argentina and Peru to wealthy Cuban American donors with no political experience. And the parents of his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, came from Cuba.<\/p>\n

Heidy S\u00e1nchez. Photograph: Courtesy of the Sanchez family<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, earlier in January, Trump reposted a tweet from someone saying Rubio should be president of Cuba, writing: \u201cSounds good to me!\u201d Rubio, who was born in the US, has ambitions to be US president.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn [Trump\u2019s] mind, he seems to be conflating several things,\u201d said Ada Ferrer, an award-winning historian whose new book, Keeper of My Kin, about the Cuban exile experience, comes out in the US in May. \u201cHe thinks of Cuban Americans as Marco Rubio, and he\u2019s inclusive of those sort of people. Then he thinks of recent arrivals and sees them as immigrants to be deported.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dariel Fern\u00e1ndez, who was born south of Havana and arrived in the US in 2002 at the age of 22, was sworn in as Miami-Dade county\u2019s first-ever elected tax collector last year.<\/p>\n

A proud follower of Trump and a sworn enemy of Cuba\u2019s communist regime, he caused a sensation when he began to use his powers to target local companies doing business with Cuba: those sending food parcels, organising travel, recharging phones or arranging elderly care on the island.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always say that this is a national security issue for the United States of America,\u201d he said. \u201cWe cannot allow the [Cuban] dictatorship to receive help from companies that are based here in the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, bring up immigration and he backs away fast. \u201cIn my role, I don\u2019t have anything to do with that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

People sell items on the street in Havana, Cuba. Photograph: Natalia Favre\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

In Cuba, it is hard to find any of the 1,600 Cubans who have so far been deported. Nearly everyone who was on S\u00e1nchez\u2019s deportation flight has already moved on to other places, she said. With help from those they left in the US, they have gone on to Brazil, Mexico or other countries without visa requirements for Cubans, such as Serbia.<\/p>\n

She won\u2019t make that choice, though. \u201cIt\u2019s pointless for me go to Mexico given Kaylin is still far away.\u201d So instead she waits, hoping that her lawyer might get her a pardon, or that the US embassy in Havana might help.<\/p>\n

The stakes are high: waiting for her in Tampa is not only Kaylin and her husband, but two IVF eggs, on a different type of ice.<\/p>\n

Eileen Sosin contributed additional reporting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Rosaly Est\u00e9vez \u201cself-deported\u201d from Miami to Havana last November, US immigration officers bid farewell by removing her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-452367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}