Emilio Nieves, a Cuban asylum seeker residing in the Orlando area of Florida, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while working as a truck driver and deported to Cuba on May 21, as reported by his partner publicly.
The family asserts that Nieves had no criminal record in the United States and that her immigration case was still in legal dispute at the time of her deportation, with a habeas corpus petition filed in a federal court.
The detention and the deportation
Nieves was arrested by ICE during working hours while driving a truck, without any criminal history to justify the action, according to his surroundings.
His partner publicly challenged the decision made by the immigration authorities and asserted that "his case remains in legal dispute," as reported by Univision Orlando.
The family now demands that a federal judge review the case and order Nieves' return to the United States.
Habeas corpus and its legal limits
The writ of habeas corpus allows for challenging the legality of a detention before a federal court, but it does not automatically revoke a deportation order.
Legal experts warn that, in some cases, "the filing of habeas may lead ICE to expedite deportation," according to the National Institute of Justice for Immigrants and Political Refugees.
In Nieves' case, the deportation was carried out before the court could act on the submitted appeal, raising questions about whether ICE ignored the ongoing judicial process.
In contrast, on May 20, federal judge Kyle C. Dudek ordered the release of Cuban Mauricio Castellanos-Gorra, who had been detained by ICE for nearly seven months, through a habeas corpus ruling based on the precedent Zadvydas v. Davis (2001), which limits prolonged detention when deportation is not reasonably foreseeable.
A recurring pattern
The case of Nieves is not an isolated one. The arrests of Cubans by ICE increased by 463% between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025, and by November of that year, the Department of Homeland Security had recorded 42,084 Cubans with final deportation orders in the U.S. immigration system.
In the first five months of 2026 alone, 612 direct repatriations of Cubans to Cuba were recorded in 18 operations. On May 22, a day after Nieves' deportation, another 76 Cubans were sent to the Island.
Florida is the state with the highest number of arrests of Cubans, with 708 recorded cases as of December 2025, concentrated in the counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Collier.
No criminal record, but deported nonetheless
A report by Human Rights Watch published on May 27, titled "They Are Leaving Us Here to Die", documented that more than 4,300 Cubans were deported to Mexico between January 20, 2025, and March 9, 2026.
According to that report, 26% of Cubans sent to Mexico had no criminal record in the United States, a profile that matches that of Nieves.
HRW also noted that many deportations were carried out without individualized assessments and that neither the United States nor Mexico has made public the agreement under which these repatriations are executed.
The Cuban regime, which had historically refused to accept deportees with serious criminal records, accepted for the first time in February 2026 to take in such deportees, thereby expanding the pool of Cubans susceptible to being sent directly to the island and accelerating the pace of repatriation flights.
Emilio Nieves' family is now waiting for a response from the federal court in a case that highlights the cracks in a system where deportation can be carried out before justice has a chance to weigh in.
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