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The Cuban regime quietly modified the rejection message displayed on the online processing platform Soberanía for specialist doctors attempting to apply for their passports, removing any explicit mention of the reason for the denial.
The change occurred following the public complaints from Dr. Alberto Tejeda Illas and the widespread outrage they ignited among colleagues on social media.
Tejeda had documented the automatic rejection he received when trying to apply for his passport: the platform clearly indicated that the application was denied because he was a specialist physician regulated by the Vital Category of the Ministry of Public Health.
That screenshot on Facebook became public evidence of a restriction that the regime had never formally acknowledged in writing.
After the virality of the case and the mass outrage of regulated doctors in Cuba, the platform changed the text.
A colleague from Tejeda attempted the same procedure and received a generic response: "The request cannot be processed; you must present yourself at a citizen assistance office of MININT in your province." The reference to the vital category and MINSAP had disappeared.
Tejeda himself verified the change by reiterating his request and publicly denounced it: "Why now, after the claims of thousands of affected doctors, are they not providing a detailed explanation? Or is it that the explanation reveals that universal rights, which the Cuban State asserts to recognize before the world, are being violated?"
The Santiago doctor had published on June 12 an open letter to the Minister of Public Health denouncing three years of refusals to obtain a passport, despite having processed his resignation over a year and a half ago.
"A employer imposes restrictions on me when I am no longer their employee and there is no employment contract in place," she wrote.
The negative responses from MINSAP are always verbal. The regime does not provide written confirmations or signed copies of the letters that applicants submit to hospital directors and provincial authorities.
The Soberanía platform had paradoxically represented the first written and automatic evidence of that restriction.
The legal basis for these restrictions is the , which makes the exit from the country of professionals deemed "vital" contingent upon the approval of their employers.
In January 2023, the government extended those restrictions to medical specialists, dentists, healthcare technicians, and nursing graduates, during an internal videoconference in which the Human Capital Director of MINSAP specifically requested "discretion."
The new Migration Law No. 171/2024, published in the Official Gazette on May 5, 2026, did not resolve the situation: the authorization to travel continues to depend on the discretionary will of officials.
The organization Prisoners Defenders documented over 1,402 cases of Cuban health professionals affected by these restrictions in a report from January 2024, compared to 110 cases recorded in 2019.
"The restrictions weigh on all similar specialists in the country, but claiming rights is a personal action; perhaps the denials are reprisals for having the courage to challenge the arbitrariness," Tejeda warned, expressing concern that the repeated rejections he has received may be a direct consequence of having spoken out.
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