A Cuban identified as Lety (@lety_palmbeach) shared on TikTok the story of her border crossing into the United States, which took place on July 5, 2013, via the international bridge connecting Matamoros, Mexico, with Brownsville, Texas. This included a moment when an immigration officer expelled her from the office, convinced that she was not Cuban.
Lety left Cuba on July 4, 2013, on a Copa Airlines flight from Havana to Mexico City, where she was supposed to catch a connection to Matamoros at noon. The second leg of the flight tried to take off four times without success, triggering panic among the passengers. "Everyone on the plane started protesting and said we didn't want to stay on that plane because we were scared," she recalled. The airline covered the hotel expenses and rebooked them for six in the morning the next day.
Upon arriving at the Matamoros-Brownsville pedestrian bridge, Lety crossed the turnstile paying 25 cents —the usual mechanism at that crossing back then— and headed to the immigration window. There, an officer briefly questioned her and then took her by the arm to lead her out of the office. "Miss, you are not going to waste my time any longer. You are not Cuban because you speak too slowly and too softly," he told her, according to her account.
The official argued that South American immigrants frequently arrived using falsified Cuban documents to take advantage of the wet foot, dry foot policy, in effect since 1995, which allowed Cubans who set foot on U.S. soil to obtain legal residency. "Here come people from South America, with all those papers you've shown me, falsified, and saying what a big deal it is to get into the United States when you're not Cuban," he snapped before sending her back to the Mexican side of the bridge, without a phone and without change.
From the bridge, a passing driver lent her cell phone to call her husband in the United States. The facilitators who had handled her immigration process urgently warned her: "Leticia, you are the only person we know who is looking to Mexico, claiming you are not Cuban. Not even Barack Obama could get you out of that office. Do me a favor and look back, because if you don’t, you will never be able to enter this country again."
The immediate problem was that she no longer had the 25-cent coin to pass through the turnstile again. A passerby gave her one, and Lety was able to re-enter. This time, she was fortunate that the officer who had previously denied her was not at his post. She approached a female officer and laid out dipyrone tablets and intimate products with labels from Havana on the counter. "Do you think anyone who is not Cuban would bring these things that can only be found on the island?" she asked.
The officer made her sit down. Around 11 o'clock at night, after completing all the paperwork, Lety was officially admitted into the United States. Her husband had traveled by bus to Brownsville and was waiting outside with a rented hotel nearby the border.
The wet foot, dry foot policy was repealed on January 12, 2017 by President Obama, ending a mechanism that had served as a legal gateway for thousands of Cubans who entered by land through Mexico for more than two decades.
"It was the most distressing day of my life, as far as I can remember. It was the entry into this country," Lety concluded. "Ever since I set foot here in the United States, I have been living the American dream."
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