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Lázaro Romero León, a 59-year-old Cuban who had been living in the United States for over 30 years, was deported to Mexico by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in February, despite a court order expressly prohibiting his expulsion.
Two months later, the U.S. government admits that it has not been able to bring him back, and the immigrant finds himself homeless in Mexico, he states in an interview with Univisión.
The federal judge Hernán D. Vera had explicitly ordered that Romero León not be deported while his immigration situation was being resolved, but ICE proceeded anyway, citing a "communication error" stemming from the high volume of court orders managed by the agency.
Since then, the attempts to return have failed one after another. First, there was an attempt to arrange an airlift from the Mexican state of Chiapas, but the Mexican authorities denied Romero León's identification documents to board the flight.
Then, —covered by his federal public defender—for him to travel to the border, but he was pulled from the vehicle by Mexican officials for lacking valid documentation and sent to a detention center.
Now, the government is considering requesting support from the Coast Guard for a maritime transfer.
During a hearing held in Los Angeles on April 23, Judge Vera harshly criticized the government and threatened sanctions for contempt.
"I need this to be escalated and for higher authorities to resolve it. It cannot be that they refuse to return someone who was wrongfully deported," the magistrate declared.
Special prosecutor Whitney Wakefield acknowledged before the court that the informal agreement between the United States and Mexico to deport Cubans "exists solely to remove a person from the United States to Mexico," and does not provide for their return in the case of wrongful deportation, which has created a diplomatic void with no solution in sight.
While the lawyers debate in California, Romero León survives in extreme vulnerability in Tapachula, Chiapas.
After being released from a Mexican detention center and abandoned near the border with Guatemala, he had to walk back to that city, he recounts.
Today he sleeps in the yard of someone else's home, wearing the same clothes he was wearing when he was expelled months ago, and he has no financial resources. The Mexican authorities have given him only five days to leave the country.
"What happened here, I wouldn't wish on anyone," declared Romero León about his situation.
Your case is not isolated. Activists estimate that there are around 800 Cubans stranded in Tapachula and about 3,000 in Villahermosa, Tabasco, caught in a legal limbo with no possibility of returning to either Cuba or the United States.
About 6,000 Cubans have been sent to Mexico under an informal unwritten agreement between both governments, as the Cuban dictatorship frequently rejects deportation flights, especially for individuals with criminal records.
A federal judge in Boston questioned the legality of that agreement on March 26, demanding documentary evidence from the Department of Homeland Security regarding whether there is a "secret or tacit agreement" between the two countries.
This is not the first case of deportation in violation of court orders: in December 2025, the Las Vegas police handed over a Cuban to ICE, ignoring a court order, a case for which the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada sued the Metropolitan Police Department.
According to data from the Cato Institute, monthly arrests of Cubans by ICE escalated from less than 200 at the end of 2024 to more than 1,000 per month by the end of 2025. Other Cubans deported after decades in the United States have described similar situations of complete helplessness in southern Mexico.
Judge Vera noted that in two other cases from his own court, the same thing happened, but that the return was achieved quickly following his orders. "Of course there are agreements to ensure this happens. But for some reason, there is a failure here, and I don't know what it is. He needs to be brought back," the magistrate concluded.
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