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A flight from the United States landed this Thursday at José Martí International Airport with 96 Cuban migrants on board —78 men and 18 women— in the latest deportation operation carried out by the Trump administration.
According to Ministry of the Interior of Cuba, with this group, the total number of Cubans returned to the island in the first six months of the year reaches 740 people, distributed across 25 operations conducted from various countries in the region.
The accumulated figures since the resumption of deportation flights in April 2023 reveal an unprecedented acceleration under the current U.S. government.
According to a compilation from Café Fuerte, based on data from the Department of Homeland Security and MININT, since that date until this new flight, 3,142 Cuban migrants have been deported in 32 air operations.
The comparison between administrations is striking: during Joe Biden's presidency, there were 19 flights from April 2023 to December 2024, with 978 Cubans repatriated.
With the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January 2025, the pace skyrocketed: in just 18 months, 18 direct flights have been completed with 2,164 deported, more than double what was recorded in the entire previous period.
The rate of deportations so far in 2026 is particularly high.
The deportation flights from the U.S. are at record levels, and in just the first five months of the year, 612 Cubans had already been returned before Thursday's operation.
Neither MININT nor the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department provides details on whether the deportees have a criminal record or possess final deportation orders. ICE stopped reporting in detail about flights to Cuba several months ago, which limits independent verification of the operations.
Direct deportations to Cuba do not represent the entirety of the phenomenon. More than 6,000 Cubans have been sent to Mexico by the Trump administration, and an undetermined number have been relocated to Honduras, Ecuador, and African countries.
The arrests of Cuban migrants by ICE increased by 463% between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2026.
The consequences for the deported go beyond forced relocation. A Cuban who arrived on the first flight of the year, on February 9 with 170 people, reported having been subjected to torture at Villa Marista following his arrival on the island.
That same flight was the first in decades to include individuals convicted of serious crimes, something that the Cuban regime had historically refused to accept.
Taking into account his two presidential terms, Trump has the highest number of Cubans deported in U.S. history, with figures exceeding 5,300, compared to 978 under Biden, 416 under George W. Bush, and 341 under Barack Obama.
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