This July marks two years since independent journalist and former Cuban political prisoner Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca was forcibly exiled to Miami, and both he and his wife, Eralidis Frómeta, remain trapped in a migratory limbo without documents or work permits in the United States.
Frómeta summarized it harshly in a recent Facebook post: "We are like we are in Cuba, afraid of being undocumented. We can't take it anymore, not even a work permit. What was the point of fighting so hard and putting our lives at risk? My husband and I are completely helpless and without protection."
Valle Roca arrived at Miami airport on June 5, 2024 in a state of severe physical deterioration after nearly three years in Combinado del Este, Cuba's high-security prison, where he was sentenced to five years for "enemy propaganda" and suffered beatings, partial hearing and vision loss, and his weight dropped from 80 to 53 kilograms.
His release occurred under a humanitarian parole arranged by Frómeta with the U.S. embassy in Havana, as a condition imposed by the Cuban regime to free him before he completed his full sentence.
The turning point in their legal situation came in March 2025, when the Department of Homeland Security notified the couple of the revocation of their parole, in accordance with Executive Order 14165 from the Trump administration, which eliminated humanitarian parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, and ordered them to leave the country by April 24, 2025.
In the face of that threat, the couple began the process for political asylum and sought support from congress members, senators, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and activist Rosa María Payá.
The Committee to Protect Journalists formally requested that U.S. authorities rescind the notification, and in May 2025, Human Rights Watch called for protection for 13 Cuban dissidents in a similar situation, including Valle Roca and Frómeta.
Almost a year after those efforts, the situation has not been resolved.
Frómeta also publicly questioned the silence of human rights organizations: "I wonder where the human rights organizations are that do not provide us with safe protection in the U.S."
The activist noted that their images of repression "continue to circulate around the world" while they remain without legal protection, and described their situation with a phrase that encapsulates their accumulated desperation: "Thrown into oblivion. It is evident that we have stopped being money-making machines at the expense of our pain and suffering."
The case is part of a broader pattern affecting dozens of exiled Cuban opponents who arrived in the United States under parole and found themselves in a migratory limbo following the change in immigration policy.
Valle Roca, for his part, stated to El País in April 2025 that if he were to be deported, he would face the return without fear: "If someday they deport me, I will enter shouting Down with Miguel Díaz-Canel and Long live Free Cuba."
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