Cuban migrant Yasmany Moreno arrived in the United States by raft in 2016 and applied for residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act. He also decided that, as an immigrant who had entered the country illegally, the loudly anti-immigrant Donald Trump was absolutely the right person to support as president.
Moreno’s support has not been reciprocated by the Trump administration. ICE detained him in May 2025, he spent over a year in detention, and he was deported on a flight on July 30, 2026. But, as the plane took off from Texas, he and his fellow Cubans had no idea of its destination.
As per a report in the Tampa Bay Times, the ICE officer escorting them began laughing five hours into the flight and informed them they were being deported to Africa. As Moreno said, “I honestly thought it was a bad joke because the officer laughed, like he was making fun of me.”
“He sent us to hell”
Moreno and 35 other Cubans were disembarked to find themselves on the other side of the world, in a French-speaking country where they know nobody, have no money, no passports, and no indication of what they should do next. The ICE officers climbed back onto the plane and flew back to Texas, leaving them in a nation that the State Department says should be avoided due to “a risk of unrest, crime, kidnapping, landmines, health, and terrorism.”
In October, Moreno said there’s a sense of “betrayal” amongst Cubans (via Cibercuba.com): “Cubans feel betrayed by Trump. Many supported him in Florida during the elections, and what did he do? He deported us to Africa. That’s the solution. He said he would free Cuba, and he hasn’t done it; he only deports and arrests innocent people. He sent us to hell.”
Now, with the blue tsunami having left Democrats in control of Congress by a large margin, Moreno is hopeful they can come back. In a video posted to Instagram (per IB Times), he said: “We are asking the Democrats now that they have won to please look at the situation we are in, which they brought us into without the proper process towards the Central African Republic. They brought us in tied up, we are still detained in the centres here, we have no papers, we are sick, all of us with stomach malaria.”
His plea was echoed by another man sent to Africa, José Miguel Hernández, who is also pleading with Democrats to bring them back to the United States: “What we are asking for is to be returned. We were brought here by force; we were brought down by force, and what we are asking of the Democrats is to take us back and respect our due process.”
It is unclear whether Democrats will be sympathetic and take action to bring them home. However, as of the end of October, around 170 people have been deported to the Central African Republic, 69 of them Cuban (per Cibercuba.com). That report also claims that even if America won’t take them back, it might be possible to transfer them to Costa Rica, Panama, or Guyana so they can continue their immigration process a little closer to home.
Published: Nov 10, 2026 10:15 am