DHS: 7% of Cuba's Population Entered the U.S. Under Biden

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a figure that reveals the scale of Cuba’s recent exodus: 7% of Cuba’s entire population entered U.S. territory illegally during the Biden administration, between February 2021 and January 2025.

The Exodus in Numbers

The revelation, made through a DHS post on X, places Cuba among the countries with the highest proportion of their population migrating illegally to the U.S.:

Country	% of population that entered illegally
Nicaragua	8%
Cuba	7%
Haiti	6%
Honduras	5%

For Cuba, with a population of approximately 11 million, this translates to roughly 770,000 people who crossed irregularly in just four years — an unprecedented modern exodus that surpasses even the Special Period of the 1990s in scale.

The Political Context

DHS under Secretary Kristi Noem is releasing these figures as part of its strategy to justify the mass deportations driven by the Trump administration. In the same statement, the department accused the Biden government of having turned the United States into a “dumping ground for third-world criminals.”

Noem declared that the U.S. went “in just one year” from the border crisis inherited from Biden to a “secure situation,” associating migration with “deaths, drug and human trafficking, sex trafficking, and child abuse.”

An Exodus Under Mounting Pressure

The figures arrive as the Trump administration drastically tightens conditions for Cuban migrants already in the U.S.:

• 302 Cubans deported so far in 2026
• Work permit restrictions for asylum seekers (365-day wait)
• 1,900 Cubans on the “worst of the worst” list with errors
• Cuba accepting deportees with criminal records for the first time

Government Shutdown Won’t Stop Deportations

Meanwhile, a partial federal government shutdown has affected DHS funding, with Democrats demanding new policies for ICE operations. However, “border czar” Tom Homan assured that the shutdown will not affect deportations.

About 90% of DHS employees are deemed essential and will continue working without pay during the shutdown, meaning the deportation machinery will keep running at the same pace.

What This Means for Cubans in the U.S.

For the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who arrived during the Biden era — many through the CHNV program, CBP One, or crossing the border — these figures become a double-edged sword:

1. They politically justify mass deportations before the American public
2. They stigmatize the entire Cuban community by associating it with criminality
3. They fuel the narrative that migration was “facilitated” by Biden, ignoring the crisis that caused it

Immigration attorneys recommend Cubans with pending cases not miss any deadlines, keep all documentation current, and seek legal counsel as soon as possible in an increasingly restrictive landscape.