The renowned immigration lawyerWilly Allenwill represent the asylum case of the two Cuban pilots who arrived in Florida last week on a motorized hang glider.
David López Alfonso,39 years old, andIsmael Hernandez Chirino, 28, arrived in Key West on March 25 and remain detained at the Pompano Beach Transition Center, in Broward County, after being processed by the United States Border Patrol in Marathon.
"I am always impressed by the ways Cubans seek to escape their country," Allen said. "They risked their lives to seek the opportunity for a better future."
Initially the lawyer had assumed the representation of Hernández Chirino, but later a relative of López Alfonso contacted him from Norway to also defend him against possible deportation.
Instatements a CyberCuba Allen explained that "no asylum is easy" and the reality is that "a minority of Cubans win asylum" in a trial.
For this reason, he plans to focus his defense on the "future persecution" that the pilots will face, due to the dramatic way in which they left Cuba.
The lawyer – who will represent them free of charge – pointed out that an example of this is "what is happening [pressure and threats] with his family in Cuba right now."
"Their asylum can be a future persecution if they are returned to Cuba, asylum can be a combination of two factors, past persecution and future persecution," he stressed.
He said that on Friday he submitted a request to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be released on parole with an I-220A (entry document into the country) or with a parole.
"If ICE declines to release them, they qualify for an immigration bond. Then they would be taken before an immigration judge to set a reasonable bond that their family can pay," Allen said.
However, if the judge does not grant them reasonable bail, the lawyer will request an asylum trial as soon as possible.
Allen recently represented another complicated case, that of the Cuban activistYeilis Torres, who after being intercepted on a raft was sent to the Guantánamo Naval Base and then transferred to an ICE prison in southern Florida, where she remained until the trial on March 28. Finally that day a judge granted him asylum after a four-hour trial, which included an hour of questioning by a prosecutor.
Allen estimates that thepilots' judgment It could take up to four hours, as happened with the Cuban activist.
López Alfonso and Hernández Chirino are paragliding pilots and were part of the Cuban Aviation Club, which has called them"vulgar criminals" and calls for the return of motorized hang gliding to the island.
"These attacks only reinforce the arguments in the case," Allen said. "They show that the Cuban government is hurt by the departure of young people desperate for a future."
The airmen remain detained at the Pompano Beach Transition Center in Broward County after being processed by the United States Border Patrol in Marathon.
The ultralight equipment used is of the “Trike” type and provided services in the tourist center of Playas del Este in Havana in the form of Aerial Sports.
The motorized hang glider took off at 8:05 am (local time) last Saturday from the Tarará residential area, in the Habana del Este municipality, and arrived at around 10:30 am at the Key West International Airport.
Among the cases of unusual arrivals from Cuba that attorney Allen has successfully defended before United States immigration courts are those of Sandra de los Santos, who arrived inside a DHL box on a flight from the Bahamas to Miami in 2004; he stowaway Yunier García Duarte, transported in the hold of a plane to Miami in August 2019; and surfer Pablo Mantilla, who crossed the Straits of Florida on a kitesurf board in May 2022.
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