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Three Cuban citizens who illegally entered Jamaica by boat and spent over six months working in the western part of the island without contacting immigration authorities were fined and sentenced to expulsion from the country after appearing before a Jamaican court.
According to the Jamaica Observer, Esequiel Hernández Hernández, Alfredo Castro Pupo, and Oslani Kennieryero Torrez appeared last Wednesday before Judge Natiesha Fairclough-Hylton in the St. James Parish Court in Montego Bay, facing charges of illegal entry.
The court heard that the three men arrived by boat on October 28, 2024, and disembarked on the coast of Lilliput, in the parish of St. James, in the northwest of Jamaica.
They spent five days in that area before finding jobs in Coral Springs, where they worked for four months.
They later moved to Coral Gardens and continued working for a construction company until their arrest on May 8 of this year.
According to the accusations, the men "made no attempt nor expressed any intention to contact immigration authorities" during that entire time.
His Cuban identity documents were presented to the police at the time of the arrest to confirm his nationality.
The charges were read to them with the assistance of a translator, and each one pleaded guilty to illegal entry.
Judge Fairclough-Hylton fined each man 5,000 Jamaican dollars—or, alternatively, five days in jail—and issued an order for their expulsion from the country.
The case adds to a recurring pattern of irregular arrivals of Cubans to Jamaica by sea, particularly concentrated in the parish of St. James.
In October 2024 —the same month the three men in this case arrived— another ten Cubans were intercepted in Unity Hall and Rose Hall, also in St. James, after arriving on four vessels.
In January of that same year, a group of ten Cuban rafters was apprehended in Coopers Pen, in the parish of Trelawny, and a court ordered their deportation.
In December 2024, Jamaica repatriated 21 Cuban migrants to the port of Santiago de Cuba in what was described as the first maritime repatriation operation of its kind between the two countries.
Most recently, in June 2025, six Cubans were arrested after landing on Harvey Beach, in Rose Hall, St. James.
Jamaican legislation prohibits the employment of foreigners without a valid work permit and provides for the detention and deportation of irregular migrants. In the case of the three Cubans, none applied for asylum or contacted immigration authorities during the more than six months they remained in the country.
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