The story of Heidy Sánchez Tejeda, the I-220B mother, separated from her breastfeeding baby and deported to Cuba in April, has shaken the Cuban community in the United States. Her husband, Carlos Yuniel Valle, has moved heaven and earth to bring her back to Tampa. Thanks to Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor, he has managed to expedite the family reunification process, which he initiated two years ago when they got married. Just this Friday, coinciding with the CiberCuba interview, Valle received the letter that will allow his lawyer, Claudia Cañizares, to move forward with the claim process.
"People think that she (Heidy Sánchez) is going to be here tomorrow, but that's not the case. This is the first step, but from now on, the battle begins," Valle pointed out to this platform during a 25-minute conversation in which he discussed his wife's arrival in the United States and her deportation to Cuba on April 23rd.
According to her explanation, Heidy Sánchez Tejeda entered the United States through the Mexico border and was unfortunate enough to spend nine months in prison until she was released with an I-220B document, which includes a deportation order. On April 20, she attended her routine appointment with ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in Tampa, where she was separated from her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter and was informed that Cuba had accepted her deportation and that she would be returned to the Island.
It was of no use that she cried and tried to explain that she has been married for two years to a Cuban who is a U.S. citizen and that her family reunification process had been stuck for those two years because, apparently, it got entangled with the residency process she had initiated. With both legal pathways open and moving at different paces, one delayed the other. She also begged not to be separated from her daughter, who was a year and a half old and still being breastfed.
Carlos Yuniel Valle met Heidy Sánchez when she worked in the kitchen of a restaurant, washing dishes. They dated for a year and then got married. She then started working cleaning hotel rooms in Downtown Tampa, and over time, she studied and earned a nursing degree, which has allowed her to work in elder care.
She was working on that when she was deported to Cuba. The company she was affiliated with learned about what happened through the media, as the case has garnered significant attention, and they contacted her husband to process the pending payment. When he checked the balance on the cards of Heidy Sánchez, it turned out that after her deportation, the bank had canceled them, and the money was lost. "She came to this country with the worst luck," her husband laments.
Heidy Sánchez's life has not been a bed of roses. She had difficulty getting pregnant, and her desire to become a mother was so strong that she underwent in vitro fertilization, which allowed her to have a daughter. This did not happen overnight. She had to wait a long time and fight hard, but ultimately, she brought her daughter into the world. What many achieve on their first attempt, she had to battle for. A year and a half later, she was separated from her daughter.
Upon arriving in Cuba, she moved to Marianao to live with her mother, but her stepfather passed away, and they had to move into a small room. This, combined with the sadness of being separated from her daughter and husband, further plunged this Cuban mother into despair as she calls her little girl five times a day despite the power outages and intermittent communication.
It was her husband who pulled strings to get her to move to Artemisa, where she now hopes the family reunification process will flourish. However, it doesn't seem to be a bed of roses because she needs three waivers. One of them is related to the deportation process, which prohibits her entry to the United States for five years.
Nevertheless, Carlos Yuniel Valle is hopeful that with the help of Congresswoman Kathy Castor, who has been so attentive to his case, he can bring his wife back to the United States and that his family can return to how it was before.
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