That do not put us all in the same bag

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans in the United States currently in a migratory limbo with I-220a fear being deported after changes in US immigration policies announced by the new administration of Donald Trump.

Yunior Luis Pino Pérez, a Cuban activist who left the island after the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021 and received an I-220A in the US after crossing the border through Mexico, is afraid of being deported to the country where he flew away.

«My life is in danger in Cuba, after being blackmailed and forced to exile. I just can’t return,» said Martí News.

Pino Pérez settled in Miami, where he requested political asylum. This year he has a second hearing to defend his case before an immigration court. His case is one of an estimate of hundreds of thousands of Cubans who entered the US on the border with Mexico and were released with an I-220A form-a “order of freedom under word” that US immigration authorities give to certain people that were arrested – during a period after 2017 and up to at least 2024. The form includes some requirements and conditions in exchange for being released from detention, such as having to attend hearings in the immigration court and periodically report to the authorities .

For decades, Cubans have enjoyed migratory privileges in the US that do not have immigrants from other nationalities. Between 1995 and 2017, Cubans who touched land could take advantage of the so -called «dry feet, wet feet», which allowed them to stay, and since 1966 the Cuban adjustment law allows them to request permanent residence a year and one day of Be in the US.

The criteria followed by immigration officers on the border to grant Cuban immigrants I-220A are not clear. There are families who entered the US together and some received a parole and others an I-220A.

According to a 2022 report from The Associated Pressthe border patrol resorted to give Parole because it was a faster procedure and lacked space for migrants in the detention centers.

Some Cubans who received the I-220A on the border were able to adjust their status thanks to the Cuban adjustment law. But in 2023, the Higher Board of Imigration Appeals of the US (BIA) dismissed that this form was a valid entrance document to benefit from said law, which requires a legal entry record.

Asking political asylum became one of the few alternatives for Cubans with I-220a. It is estimated that tens of thousands remain in limbo, without residence and the waiting for their asylum cases to be seen in an immigration court.

Lawyers have said that these people could take several years to have an answer to their case. The rise in asylum applications in the US shot in recent years. In 2010 the accumulation was 16,000 requests that already 2023 was more than 1 million.

The citizenship and immigration service (USCIS) detailed in a report that they do not have sufficient funds or personnel to comply with legal deadlines and reduce the accumulation of applications.

In recent years, hundreds of Cubans with I-220a have demonstrated in Washington and Miami asking the authorities to regularize their situation. Most have formed families in the US, they have work and claim to be afraid that they will return them to the island.

«I was not luck,» says a Cuban who crossed the border in 2022

Dayvel Álvarez, a young Cuban who arrived in the US in July 2022, requested asylum shortly after entering the country through the border and receiving an I-220a. At the end of a year and one day of his arrival in the US, he requested the residence for the Cuban adjustment law. Both cases are ongoing.

«If the residence for the adjustment law came to me, then I close my asylum case. I have a friend who did so,» he explained.

At the end of 2023 there were reports from Cubans with I-220A that they received, without requesting it, a Interim parole with which they were able to apply to the residence by the adjustment law. The Parole counts as a legal entry record to the country.

«I only got the work permit. I am waiting, that is standing, when I check the case, I still have no cut date» for the case of asylum, said Álvarez, who says he feels fear and uncertainty of what will happen with Your life.

«You have to walk through the thread and behave well,» he said, in the face of the fear generated by immigration raids in recent weeks in several US cities. The Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) has not told how many people has deported from Trump’s return to the White House but last week the agency reported a daily average of more than 1,000. The daily average of irregular immigrants arrests in fiscal year 2024 was 311.

Tom Homan, the Tsar of the Trump border, declared NBC News They wanted to «catch as many criminals as possible.» A memorandum of the National Security Department (DHS) indicates that those who entered the country through the border using the CBP One application and those who arrived through the probation process, known as humanitarian parole, could be deported accelerated.

The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comments from Martí Noicias on whether the new administration provides any change for Cubans who were released with form I-220A.

Ismael Labrador, an immigration lawyer from southern Florida, said nothing has changed for Cubans with I-220a after Trump’s arrival at the White House. «People with asylum cases cannot be deported until a determination is made,» he said.

However, the expert recommends having «their immigration documents, their valid ID number, their work permit and all the documents that ratify them that they have a pending asylum case against USCIS or in front of the immigration court» for show the authorities.

Labrador recalls that people can not only be sought in public places, they can also be referred to if they are arrested by the police. «The best protection for all cases (I-220a, humanitarian parole and CBP One) is asylum,» he added.

Political asylum: «They don’t get us all in the same bag»

Oscar Casanella, a political activist who arrived in the US in January 2022 with his little son and his pregnant wife, applied to asylum. He has his first appointment in the court scheduled for this year.

The young man, a scientist who investigated cancer at the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology, had more than a decade receiving threats and arbitrary arrests from the Cuban political police. The situation worsened in 2020 when he joined the group of strikers who were aid in San Isidro to request the release of rapper Denis Solís.

«I never intended to emigrate. I always wanted to live in Cuba,» said Casanella, who was in home prison most of his last year in Havana.

After a dangerous journey through Central America, «we crossed the border through El Paso, Texas. We got off a car and ran several hundred meters and crossed a ditch of masonal waters. In one hand I took my 4 -year -old son, in the other A folder with the documents, with the birth and marriage certificates, so that they would not separate us, to assume us as a family, «he recalled. Each one was given independent documents and had no interview with the officers who attended their cases, he said.

«We wanted them to do the credible fear interview, we tried that, but they freed us with the I-220a without being able to explain that we were persecuted politicians,» he said.

Casanella commented that its greatest «fear regarding the policy of the new administration is to apply general measures, do not analyze case by case, and people who have a solid political asylum we fall into the sack of other people.»

Republican congressman Mario Díaz-Balart assured Martí News that «there is a very big thrust to deport, particularly the criminals» but that they will work so that those who have «legitimate cases of asylum» can have a process where those can be reviewed cases «.

Amid the fear of the Latin community to mass deportations, the Cuban-American congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, who has requested on multiple occasions that the I-220A is considered a valid entry document for the adjustment, said they are working so that «the good people is protected «,

«Seventy -seven million people voted for Trump to take out the criminals. They all leave. The problem is that good people are protected and I am in that,» he said.