A doctor who suffered repression in Cuba due to her political beliefs is seeking political asylum in the United States.
Ana Karelia Borrego Machado, a first-degree specialist in Comprehensive General Medicine, was dismissed from her job in 2011 and later threatened with eviction along with her children just for claiming her rights.
In a post on her Facebook wall, Ana Karelia recounts that she reached out to all institutions and state media, and no one helped her; on the contrary, she was brutally mistreated by officials despite being pregnant with her youngest child.
"The Ministry of Public Health had a document stating that I was a disaffected member of the community, a dissident, and that I participated in the famous human rights commissions, persecuted and monitored by the State Security Control Bodies. For this reason, I was never granted the right to work again and began to be repressed by officials of the Cuban dictatorship," she detailed.
"I sought help from the independent press, and this provoked even more persecution and repression that made my life on the island impossible," she stated.
The doctor arrived in the United States on August 9 through the Texas border with her second child and requested asylum. The young man, being of legal age, was processed separately, which caused her great distress as a mother.
"I was transferred on August 11 to Karnes County Immigration Center, where I was detained seeking political asylum, interviewed with positive results. I left on August 19 with an ankle monitor and a court date for next September. My son was sent back to Mexico to apply for the CBPONE appointment. I am very worried for his life," she expressed.
The MGI specialist requests the international public opinion to intercede for her after having sought political asylum in North American territory.
"I cannot return to my country due to repression. I have documentary evidence regarding my case," he assured.
Ana Karelia's problems began on December 5, 2011, when an "unjust disciplinary measure" removed her from her job, as she reported in 2018 to the independent portal CubaNet.
According to her account, Public Health officials decided to terminate her employment due to alleged unjustified absences, a measure that was given a political twist, but which actually had another hidden intention: to seize the home that she, as a family doctor, occupied with her family in the Playa municipality.
Since then, she has reported to all instances that the process carried out against her was filled with violations of the labor code and riddled with "injustice, arbitrariness, untimeliness, and illegality," she stated.
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