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 clear court order prohibiting his expulsion.
Two months later, the U.S. government acknowledges that it has been unable to bring him back, and the immigrant finds himself homeless in Mexico, he states in an interview with Univisión.
Federal Judge Hernán D. Vera had explicitly ordered that Romero León not be expelled while his immigration situation was being resolved, but ICE proceeded nonetheless, citing a "communication error" due to the high volume of court orders handled by the agency.
Since then, the attempts to return have failed one after another. First, an airlifting was attempted from the Mexican state of Chiapas, but the Mexican authorities rejected 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 removed 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 resolved by higher authorities. It cannot be that they refuse to return someone who was wrongly 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 that it does not account for the return in the event of wrongful deportation, which has created a diplomatic vacuum with no solution in sight.
While the lawyers debate in California, Romero León survives in conditions of 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 a stranger's home, wearing the same clothes he was expelled in months ago, and he has no financial resources. Mexican authorities have given him just 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.
Approximately 6,000 Cubans have been sent to Mexico under an informal written 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 exists a "secret or implied 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, disregarding 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 rose from fewer than 200 at the end of 2024 to over 1,000 per month by the end of 2025. Other Cubans deported after decades in the United States have reported similar situations of total helplessness in southern Mexico.
Judge Vera noted that the same issue occurred in two other cases in his own court, but that the return was achieved promptly after his orders. "Of course there are arrangements for this to happen. 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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