Desperate family that was deported to Cuba with a child from the United States

A Cuban couple and their 13-year-old son who lived in North Carolina are desperate after being deported to the island on March 28.

The family arrived in the United States through Arizona in November 2021.

However, their asylum request was not granted and they were granted Notices to Appear, with a first hearing scheduled in the Immigration Court of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, on February 16, 2023.

The bad luck is that ICE scheduled an interview for the family on the same day of their court hearing, that is, for February 16 of last year.

The family chose to attend the ICE interview first but arrived two hours late to court, which determined that they were deported in absentia, it was revealed.Telemundo 51.

The family's attorney, Grisel Ybarra, filed a Motion to Reopen before the Immigration Judge,arguing the error in scheduling the interview.

However, the motion was denied, leading to aappeal pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals, a process that was ongoing now.

Despite this, on March 18 of this year they received a notification to appear before ICE on Wednesday the 27th, the day on which, without prior notice,They were put on a flight to Miami by a deportation officer.

They spent the night in a hotel guarded by Immigration officers and were forced to board the plane that on March 28 deported 61 Cubans to the island, including them.

At no time since they appeared before ICE on March 27 were they allowed to communicate with their attorney.

“In the 47 years that I have been working, I have never seen a Cuban child be deported. Never", said toTelemundo 51Visibly moved Grisel Ybarra, who is currently moving forward in her attempt to help the family, now to return to the United States by some means.

“A country in destruction, Imagine”, says Guillermo Picos, the father of the family, from Cuba, who still cannot believe the way their destinies turned upside down.

In North Carolina Guillermo Picos worked as an UBER driver and his wife worked in a remittance company, while the teenager was finishing eighth grade.

The journalist Daniel Benítez, who has also taken interest in the case and has interviewed the family,has emphasized -citing the lawyer's point of view- that the rights of that family were violated, and considers thatIt is a regrettable message that the current Administration sends by deporting a working family with an open immigration case, while there are Cubans with significant criminal records who have not been deported.

Ybarra, for his part, refers to the words ofAlexander Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security of the United States, when he indicated that priority in deportations would be given to immigrants with an extensive criminal history, an argument that does not hold up before this family.

"The only thing I ask is that they return me back so that my son can fulfill all his dreams and move forward.", concludes Guillermo Picos.

At this time, the family has several fronts open to try to return to the United States. The ongoing appeal is joined by the effort through the intervention of local politicians to hear about the case. Another way is to obtain a humanitarian parole to fight your asylum case.