After years of trying to emigrate, selling the house he inherited from his grandparents, and being a victim of two alleged scams in different countries, the man from Matanzas, Yehan Perdomo, claims to be in a desperate situation today: he remains stranded in Cuba because the lawyer he hired in Paraguay never completed his immigration procedures and, he alleges, did not refund the money he paid her.
His story was reported by the Paraguayan newspaper Crónica, which details how the Cuban handed over 1,000 dollars to a lawyer to manage his asylum request before the National Commission for Stateless Persons and Refugees (CONARE), as well as other documents that would allow him to regularize his immigration status.
None of that happened.
Yehan and his mother arrived in Paraguay in July 2025, after crossing from Brazil via the Friendship Bridge. Their intention was to settle in Asunción, but they ended up in Ciudad del Este, where, through a lawyer known to Yehan during a work stay in Brazil, they were referred to a colleague based in Presidente Franco.
According to the Cuban, the lawyer committed to processing the asylum application and to managing a migration mechanism that would even facilitate future family reunification.
However, an official from CONARE warned them that the procedure was not being handled correctly. According to Yehan, the lawyer herself even asked them not to mention that they were working with her.
While they waited for a response, he and his mother spent months without immigration documents, which prevented them from working legally, opening bank accounts, or accessing other basic services.
The situation worsened when her mother fell ill, and she had to urgently return to Cuba. Yehan decided to accompany her.
Before leaving Paraguay, he demanded the return of his money. He recounted that the lawyer only reimbursed him 300 dollars and promised to return the rest in monthly installments, a commitment that she never fulfilled.
Back in Cuba, she discovered another obstacle: to return to Paraguay, she needed an invitation letter that, supposedly, could only be arranged by the same lawyer.
The Cuban claims that he tried to contact her numerous times, but he had been blocked on WhatsApp. After locating her through family members, the woman agreed to prepare the document in exchange for a new payment. The letter, he asserts, never arrived.
Since then, Yehan has made several trips from Matanzas to the Embassy of Paraguay in Havana in an attempt to find a solution. He has also sent letters to the Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Congress, and President Santiago Peña, without being able to resolve his situation.
His frustration grew when the Supreme Court and the Public Defender's Office of Alto Paraná informed him that he can only file a criminal complaint for alleged fraud if he is physically present in Paraguay, which is currently impossible for him due to a lack of documentation.
This is not the first time Yehan has lost all his savings trying to emigrate.
In 2022, as documented by Diario Las Américas, he sold the house he had inherited from his grandparents to fund a trip to the United States. During this process, he paid $4,600 to a Mexican lawyer and a Cuban couple for a supposed immigration protection that turned out to be false.
This was accompanied by the cost of the trip, estimated at around 3,600 dollars. He was ultimately detained at Cancun airport and deported to Cuba a week later.
In total, he estimates that he lost around 10,000 dollars in that attempt.
The case of Yehan brings to light a problem that affects many Cuban migrants: networks of fake lawyers and agents who promise to regularize immigration processes or obtain documents in exchange for high sums of money, taking advantage of individuals seeking to leave the island.
Despite everything that has happened, Yehan asserts that he has not given up on his goal of rebuilding his life outside of Cuba.
"The only thing left for me, nothing else I can do, is to leave here," he said after his deportation from Mexico in 2022.
Four years later, that phrase still defines her reality.
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