Michel, a Cuban deported from the United States in November 2025, faced immediate hardships upon returning to Cuba, sleeping on an old mattress in his brother's apartment in Placetas. Under the Trump administration, thousands of Cubans have lost immigration privileges, doubling deportation numbers from previous averages. Many, like Michel, now seek refuge in Mexico while awaiting future options.
Michel arrived in Cuba after being arrested in October 2025 during a routine immigration officer appointment in Nebraska, where he had lived for over a year without committing any crimes. He had no deportation order but was sent to a detention center and then to Havana in November. Upon landing, he was bused to his province and reached Placetas by afternoon, facing blackouts and lack of family support: his mother died in 2021 from COVID-19, his father abandoned him as a child, and his ex-wife moved to Spain with their son.
Though formally returning to an aunt's home, he stayed in his brother's recently purchased two-bedroom apartment, which was under repairs. With money sent by his brother and wife Jennifer, a Mexican naturalized U.S. citizen whom he married in 2025 and whose child he adopted, he fixed up one room to avoid crashing with others during his two months in Cuba. 'I never considered staying in Cuba. After living abroad, I couldn't adapt. It's very hard to return to blackouts, the heat, and the mosquitoes,' Michel said via Messenger.
In January of this year, Michel traveled to Mexico, where he now lives in Ciudad Juárez with Jennifer, waiting for her to secure work as a nursing assistant in Texas. They plan for her to work in the U.S. while living in Mexico until the course of Trump's presidency becomes clearer.
The Trump administration canceled in December the family reunification program for Cubans since 2007, froze in January visa processing for 65 countries including Cuba, and closed pathways like Humanitarian Parole and CBP One. It also suspended permanent residency after one year and one day, and citizenship after five years. In the first year of his second term, it ordered 1,669 deportations to Cuba, double the average of his first term and 300 more than Biden's in 2024. Hundreds more were sent to third countries, such as Mexico.
An exceptional case is Carlos Manuel from Camagüey, who self-deported in January with his wife and two minor daughters, receiving $2,600 from the Department of Homeland Security, up from $1,000. He will use the money to restart his bakery supplies business, which he did not sell when emigrating in 2024. 'I never lost my contacts or sold my house here,' he explained.
Since 2021, about 620,000 Cubans reached the U.S. southern border via the volcano route from Nicaragua, benefiting from releases under I-220A and I-220B forms for 'credible fear' asylum, but without permanent residency. The 'wet foot, dry foot' policy of 1995, derived from the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, was repealed by Obama in 2017 and not reinstated by Biden.
