Dozens of Cubans who have applied for residency have recently received a letter from the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), inviting them to have their fingerprints taken. The most frequently asked question to lawyer Willy Allen, an expert in immigration law, this Monday in his weekly program on CiberCuba, was whether that is "normal."
"The new panic this month is the footprints," acknowledged Allen, in response to the flood of questions from Cubans who have applied for residency, regardless of whether it was a year, two years, or a month ago, and who cannot understand why they are being called at this time for biometric testing. Naturally, they fear the worst: that they will be detained and deported.
In statements to this platform, Allen explained at least five times that it is not normal for people to be summoned en masse for fingerprints, just as it was not normal a few months ago for individuals to be detained by ICE agents upon leaving the Court after the judge dismissed their cases.
In this regard, he also explained that he has consulted a group of lawyers about the issue of fingerprint appointments, and they have all confirmed that they have never had any clients detained when attending biometric tests.
The new panic over fingerprints adds to the collective terror caused by arrests made by ICE agents in the streets, on the highways, in court, and during appointments in Miramar. Then came the tragedy of the detentions of Cubans under I-220A; following that was the horrifying fear of the execution of the deportation orders for I-220B, which has sent dozens of Cubans back to Havana, including a mother of a breastfeeding infant with an I-130 application in process.
The list is long: it also includes the fear of being deported to an African country or being locked up in the Alcatraz of the Caymans; the concern of being detained and having no possibility of posting bail under the doctrine of Matter of Q. Li and later, of Yahure Hurtado. We must also add the collective dread of being sent far away, to an immigrant detention center in another state, which complicates communication with legal defense. There is no respite.
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