Deported Cuban migrants are stranded in Mexico after suffering mistreatment in US detention centers, report says

By Mauricio Torres, CNN

(CNN) — Thousands of Cuban migrants deported from the United States have faced violations of their rights and are currently in “a legal limbo” in Mexico, where they have difficulties regularizing their situation and even obtaining medical care, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch.

The HRW report, published Wednesday, is based on a review of deportation figures from January 2025 to March of this year, as well as interviews with authorities and deported migrants.

According to the report, since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the US government has sought to increase its deportations and, to do so, has resorted to sending migrants to places other than their countries of origin.

Among those destination countries, Mexico has received the most migrants of various nationalities, with 12,977, followed by Honduras, with 1,352, and Canada, with 1,066, the report says, based on statistics obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Of the total number of migrants deported to Mexico, the largest group consists of people from Cuba, with 4,353.

HRW says it interviewed 41 of those Cuban migrants, and that many of them said they had lived in the US for decades and were detained while attending their supervision appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at their homes, on their way to work or after finishing prison sentences.

According to HRW, 35 of those interviewed said they lost their green cards because of a conviction, mostly for offenses such as driving under the influence of alcohol, falsifying documents, or minor drug-related charges. Others were convicted of more serious offenses, such as assault or weapons-related charges.

“The absence of deportation agreements with Cuba meant that these people could not be deported to their country of origin. Instead, they were allowed to continue their lives in the United States, and many came to believe they would never be deported,” the report says, adding many had work permits and lived with their families.

The report notes the situation changed from the start of Trump’s second term, with the tightening of immigration policy. Many Cubans began to be detained, mainly in Florida, where, according to HRW, they were taken to centers where they were held in “inhumane conditions” and were prevented from exercising their right to challenge the order to be deported to a third country.

“The people interviewed for this report described inhumane conditions of detention in immigration detention centers in the United States that are part of a broader pattern that Human Rights Watch has documented since 2025,” the non-profit organization said.

CNN contacted both ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for comment on the allegations in the report.

HRW cites as an example the case of Fermín, a 52-year-old Cuban who was in the Alligator Alcatraz detention center in Florida, where he said there was contaminated water, raw food, and many sick people. Previously, other human rights organizations have collected similar testimonies.

The report says that 15 interviewees said they experienced “episodes of verbal and physical violence, including beatings and prolonged periods of isolation, in different detention centers.”

One example of this, it adds, was the case of Alejo, a 50-year-old Cuban who said he was held in isolation for two weeks in a detention center in El Paso, Texas. “I spent 15 days detained in the hole, a punishment cell, (where) you don’t see the sunlight,” he recounted in the report.

The Trump administration has repeatedly defended the operation of federal migrant detention centers, arguing they provide adequate conditions and respect human rights.

An “indefinite legal limbo”

According to the report, once Cuban migrants are deported to Mexico, they arrive in cities on the country’s southern border: Tapachula, in Chiapas state, and Villahermosa, in Tabasco state.

There, they face obstacles in regularizing their situation because they lack documents and belongings, HRW said. Their main alternative is to become asylum seekers, a slow process for which Mexican authorities have received a growing number of applications in recent years.

HRW mentions the case of Emiliano, a 47-year-old Cuban who reported feeling trapped in Villahermosa, where he said he fears violence from criminal groups in the area.

Interviewees also said they suffer from chronic illnesses and struggle to access medical care or medicine because they lack a CURP, an alphanumeric code that identifies residents in Mexico and which hospitals usually require for treatment.

“By not offering Cubans and other nationals of third countries effective access to asylum or alternative avenues for obtaining permanent residency, and by continuing to accept deportations, Mexico is in effect condemning them to an indefinite legal limbo,” the report states.

CNN has contacted both the Mexican National Migration Institute and the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance for comment.

Returning to Cuba, a distant possibility

The Cuban citizens interviewed by HRW also said they see little probability of receiving help from their country of birth.

Miguel Ángel, 67, said he was told by officials at the Cuban Consulate in Cancún that he would not be readmitted to Cuba because “he had been out of the country for more than 40 years and was a deportee,” according to the report.

CNN contacted the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

The release of the HRW report comes amid growing tensions between Washington and Havana.

Earlier this month the US government indicted 94-year-old former Cuban President Raúl Castro on federal charges regarding the downing of two civilian planes in 1996. Cuban leaders have condemned the move as seeking to justify US aggression against the island.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.