Cuban Deportees Live in Stateless Limbo in Mexico

It was 2 a.m. when a bus carrying dozens of U.S. deportees heaved into Villahermosa, a sweltering city in southern Mexico that most had never heard of.

The Mexican immigration agents who had guarded the group on their three-day trip from the border said their charges, still dressed in the prison garb of detainees, were now free to go.

Alberto Rodríguez, 73, limped with a cane down a deserted industrial street. A stroke had left him perpetually foggy, unable to recall many details about his life beyond the fact that he had been born in Cuba and had spent nearly 50 years in the United States.

“Where am I?” he called out.

“Villahermosa,” someone answered.

Like most of the others, Rodríguez had never set foot in Mexico and had never heard of this city of a million people surrounded by dense jungle.

The Kafkaesque limbo of “third countries”

As part of his sweeping immigration crackdown, President Trump has sent deportees to nations that are not their home countries, including Rwanda, El Salvador and South Sudan. But by far the largest number of third-country deportees are being quietly sent to Mexico, where they are quickly bused to smaller cities thousands of miles south of the U.S. border.

The deportees wandered in the dark until they found a park, where Rodríguez spent the first of what would be many nights curled up on the ground, trying to sleep.

Mexico accepted nearly 13,000 non-Mexicans deported during the first 11 months of Trump’s second term, including people from Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua, according to data from the Mexican government. The largest group was made up of immigrants from Cuba, whose communist government sometimes refuses to take back U.S. deportees, particularly those with criminal records.

Manufactured humanitarian crisis

Banished from the U.S., undocumented in Mexico and unable to go home, deportees are stuck in “a quasi-stateless limbo,” according to a recent report by the advocacy group Refugees International.

Yael Schacher, one of the authors of the report, called Mexico’s decision to send migrants to cities such as Villahermosa, a few hours from the Guatemalan border, an effort to keep them “out of sight.”

Villahermosa lacks adequate services, with just one migrant shelter and no office of the federal agency that processes refugee applications. The city is engulfed in a violent conflict between drug gangs. Nine out of 10 residents say their city is unsafe, according to census data, more than in any other municipality in Mexico.

“They’re dumping people in a dangerous place who are extremely vulnerable,” said Gretchen Kuhner, director of the Institute for Women in Migration, a nonprofit.

The shelter of desperation

Rodríguez, who has a slight frame and a white beard, spends his days sitting in the shade of a tree outside Oasis de Paz del Espíritu Santo Amparito, a small Catholic shelter nestled amid junk yards and mechanic shops.

He is one of many elderly Cubans with health problems deported in recent months, according to aid workers. The shelter’s oldest resident is an 83-year-old who spent most of his life working in Florida before he was picked up and sent to a detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Many are infirm, including Ricardo Pérez, 67, who said he was pushed across the U.S. border by immigration agents in a wheelchair, or 59-year-old Luis René Lemus, who suffers from Parkinson’s and schizophrenia and has struggled to procure needed medication in Mexico.

Ricardo del Pino, 67, was severely ill when he arrived at the shelter last summer, according to Josué Martínez Leal, one of its directors. Del Pino died of cancer a few months later. Martínez had the man’s body cremated, and stored the ashes in a wooden niche in the shelter’s small chapel.

“They’re sending them here to die,” Martínez said, angry that the U.S. is deporting people who are so clearly vulnerable, and that Mexico isn’t doing more to care for them.

Between desperation and death

Rodríguez, who sleeps many nights outside of a public hospital a few blocks from the shelter, said he feels so hopeless that he is thinking about taking his own life.

“Honestly?” he said. “I’m just looking for a gun.”

“No, no, no,” interjected 53-year-old José Alejandro Aponte Delgado. He put his arm around his friend. “I’ve felt the same way at times,” Aponte said. “It’s going to get better, brother. It has to.”

Yet there is little relief in sight. Severe foreign aid cuts by the Trump government have greatly reduced Mexico’s capacity to tend to migrants.

Last year the administration slashed $2 billion in annual U.S. aid destined for Latin America and the Caribbean, forcing nonprofit shelters, legal aid providers and others that work with migrants to lay off staff or suspend their operations altogether.

The profile of new deportees

For decades, Mexico has been a transit country for migrants — mostly relatively young people and families on their way to the United States. The new deportees to Mexico fit a very different profile.

Many were longtime U.S. residents who entered the country years ago, often legally. Some had been granted the opportunity to stay after proving to immigration judges that they would probably be persecuted if returned to their homeland.

Many of the Cubans expelled to Mexico lost their refugee status decades ago after committing crimes, but were allowed to stay in the U.S. with unexecuted deportation orders because the Cuban government refused to take them back.

It was only under Trump that such migrants were targeted for removal. That includes people like Rodríguez, who was convicted of robbery in 1990, according to court records.

Frequently asked questions about deportations to Mexico

Why does the U.S. deport Cubans to Mexico instead of Cuba?

The Cuban government sometimes refuses to take back U.S. deportees, especially those with criminal records. Trump has implemented “third country” deportations as an alternative.

How many Cubans have been deported to Mexico?

Mexico accepted nearly 13,000 non-Mexicans deported during the first 11 months of Trump’s second term, with Cubans being the largest group among them.

What services do Cuban deportees have in Villahermosa?

Villahermosa has only one migrant shelter and no federal office to process refugee applications. The city also faces high levels of criminal violence.

Can Cuban deportees seek asylum in Mexico?

Human rights advocates say Mexican officials rarely inform deportees about their right to seek asylum in the country, violating international non-refoulement principles.

The uncertain future

Many deportees survive on savings they accumulated as workers in the United States, but without prospects for legal work or immigration status in Mexico. They spend their days smoking cigarettes, watching movies and reminiscing about life in the U.S.

“I miss burgers,” said Mauricio De Leon, 50, who was born in Guatemala but taken to the U.S. when he was a year old.

“I miss pizza,” said Miguel Martínez Cruz, 65, a Cuban deportee who is blind in one eye.

“I miss the beach,” De Leon said.

They have no hot water. No prospects for work. “It’s the same bad day over and over,” he said.

This humanitarian crisis will continue to expand as long as Trump maintains his third-country deportation policy, leaving thousands of Cubans in a Kafkaesque limbo with no hope of resolution.