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What seemed like the end of a migration nightmare for dozens of Cubans turned into a journey that first took them to ICE detention centers in the United States, then to the Guantanamo Naval Base, and ultimately to a forced return to Cuba.
On Monday, the United States repatriated 170 Cuban citizens on a charter flight that landed at José Martí International Airport in Havana, thus bringing to an end the limbo in which dozens of men had been trapped for weeks, having been held in military facilities historically linked to prisoners of terrorism.
The information was confirmed by The New York Times, which has closely followed the case since the first Cubans were sent to Guantánamo in late 2025, in an operation marked by official silence and the distress of families.
According to the New York newspaper, more than 50 of the repatriated individuals were part of a group of men who had been transferred from ICE detention centers—including the large facility in Natchez, Mississippi—to the U.S. base on the eastern tip of Cuba.
Many of them accepted the deportation thinking they would return directly to Havana. But the plane landed in Guantánamo.
There, they ended up confined in a prison that had previously housed suspects of belonging to Al Qaeda, a situation that was difficult for their families to come to terms with.
For weeks, mothers, wives, and sisters reported that the men remained unreachable, with brief and fearful phone calls. In private support groups, families shared rumors, prayed, and tried to piece together the whereabouts of their loved ones, lacking clear official information.
ICE moved them between states... and in the end, returned them to Cuba
According to The New York Times, the flight that finally repatriated them departed from airports in Louisiana and Florida and took the deportees to Havana.
The newspaper specified that the Cubans had been detained for months in the United States, including a period in Guantanamo, before being transferred last week to Mississippi.
Human rights organizations confirmed that this was the first deportation flight to Cuba since December 18, according to data from Human Rights First, which monitors these operations through the ICE Flight Monitor program.
However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) avoided answering questions about the detainees and their transfer.
On its part, the Ministry of the Interior of Cuba (MININT) confirmed that there were 153 men and 17 women on the flight. Cuban authorities noted that three of them were made available to investigative bodies for alleged crimes committed before leaving the country.
The return comes at a particularly critical time for the island, engulfed in blackouts, food and medicine shortages, a collapse of transportation, and an increasingly visible social decline.
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