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Three Cuban citizens, with illegal status in the United States and criminal records for serious offenses, were arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are facing imminent deportation from the country.
The immigration authorities reported this weekend the arrest of Alexander Herrera Acosta, Joaquín Viamonte Salas, and Erisbel Artiles, in various ICE operations. The latter two have active final deportation orders.
Herrera Acosta, arrested at his home in Cape Coral, Florida, has an extensive criminal record. “His most serious offense resulted in a conviction for sexual abuse of minors,” revealed ICE, which included him in its list of “The worst of the worst”, a designation used for those arrested who are considered “violent foreign criminals.”
Viamonte Salas, 34 years old, has prior convictions for sexual assault, assault, and theft, as well as a final removal order in 2024.
The agency did not specify where he was arrested, but it did warn emphatically that they were going to "arrest him one way or another, and his mother knew it."
“She accompanied him safely out of the house until he was under our custody,” the note on the social media platform X stated, alongside a photo showing two police officers handcuffing Viamonte while his mother handed a mobile phone to one of the officers. “When we have the cooperation of the community, we are all safer,” ICE asserted.
It was also announced that the arrest in Tallahassee, Florida, of Artiles, 47 years old, had an active deportation order and an extensive criminal record, which includes theft, kidnapping (taking a person hostage for escape), vehicle theft, illegal detention and drug-related offenses.
His current arrest occurred during a joint operation with the Collier County Sheriff's Office, as part of the 287(g) program that authorizes state and local law enforcement to assume immigration enforcement functions under the supervision of ICE.
Artiles was sentenced in 2010 to more than 10 years in prison (121 months) for hostage-taking, in a case of human trafficking that involved the illegal transportation of an undocumented Guatemalan immigrant from his country to Florida. His mother was also prosecuted for complicity in the smuggling.
An unspecified number of Cuban immigrants with criminal records have been detained by ICE in several states since January, sent to detention centers awaiting their expulsion or have already been deported, as part of the strict immigration control policies of the Donald Trump administration.
The U.S. government has sent immigrants who have committed serious crimes to third countries when they are not accepted by their countries of origin.
In the case of Cubans, they may be deported to a destination other than Cuba if the Havana regime does not allow them to return. The authorities on the island refuse to accept people with criminal records in the U.S. or those who emigrated before January 2017.
The Supreme Court granted the White House permission last June to deport certain immigrants to countries other than their countries of origin, including places where they are at risk of torture or death.
Before the Supreme Court's final ruling, two Cubans with extensive criminal records were sent to South Sudan, while another was deported to the Kingdom of Eswatini in July. Other island citizens have been taken to Mexico, although the number has not been disclosed.
From January to September of this year, 999 individuals were deported to Cuba from the U.S. by air, under the existing migration agreements between the two countries.
Official data from the DHS estimates that there are over 42,000 Cubans with final deportation orders, but the island's regime's reluctance to accept them back has complicated the expulsion processes.
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