Katrina Castro-Menéndez, 41 years old, a former Cuban judge from Matanzas, has been held at the Broward Transition Center since June 12, when six agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intercepted her in a vehicle ambush outside her home in Cooper City, Florida.
Her case was documented by the Spanish newspaper El País in an interview conducted at the detention center itself.
The accusation
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserts that Castro-Menéndez is inadmissible for two reasons: having attempted to obtain immigration benefits "through fraud or deliberate misrepresentation" and allegedly being affiliated with the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).
The file submitted to the immigration court in Miami states: “Under penalty of perjury, you omitted your connection with the Communist Party as a criminal judge in the Municipal People's Court of Centro Habana.”
Katrina denies both charges.
She was 23 years old when she started working as a judge, and the statutes of the PCC state that most of its members join after the age of 30.
El País confirmed with at least three additional Cuban judges that being a member of the PCC is not a mandatory requirement for holding that position.
“The prosecutor will never be able to prove that I was, just as I can't prove that I wasn't. He also claims that to be a judge, I had to have been part of the party, but that's not true. That's an inconsistency,” the detainee stated to the cited media outlet.
A path away from power
Castro-Menéndez grew up in the countryside, in Matanzas, and studied Law at the University of Havana.
After graduating, she was assigned to the Cárdenas court as part of her social service, where she earned 190 pesos a month, about seven dollars.
"That's why nobody wanted to work there, because that was the salary," he recalls.
The former judge claims that the penalties she imposed never exceeded 12 months and were limited to minor offenses: "It was the man who stole the bicycle from the corner, or the one who stole fruits from a grocery store."
Katrina Castro-Menéndez asserts that she has never handled cases related to political protests.
He left the position in 2014 and worked as a lawyer at the Colective Law Firm of Centro Habana.
In 2019, he traveled to Mexico to pursue a Master's in Human Rights.
On August 13, 2021, she presented at a border point in Arizona and was released with I-220A status, the same that affects over 500,000 Cubans in the United States.
The inconsistency in the forms
The origin of the legal issue lies in two distinct forms.
In the first —asylum application— a law firm that charged him 3,000 dollars stated that he had not belonged to any political organization.
"I saved it penny by penny, cleaning floors, without buying anything for my daughter," Katrina said about the source of the money.
In the second form—application for residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act—Katrina declared that she had indeed been a member of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) and the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), mass organizations that all Cubans over the age of 14 automatically join and which have been sanctioned by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
He also acknowledged having belonged to the University Student Federation (FEU). That statement became the basis for the fraud accusation.
The hearing before the judge
On August 5, Katrina appeared before the immigration judge in Miami without legal representation.
In response to the magistrate's direct question, he answered: "No, I have not been a member of the Communist Party in any country in the world."
He also explained the discrepancy between the forms: “I didn’t lie, I went through my process with that lawyer, he never interviewed me, he just asked me why I was applying for asylum. I never had the slightest idea that something was wrong with my process.”
Separated family and uncertain future
Neither her husband, Deyni Rojas González, nor her 15-year-old daughter can visit her in Broward due to lacking residency or citizenship.
For several days now, they have also been unable to communicate via video call due to the expiration of the father's legal guarantees as a beneficiary of a humanitarian parole program.
From the center, Katrina rehearses the conversation she dreads having with her daughter: "How do I tell her that we're going back again? To a country where there’s no electricity for three days in a row? A country where people do nothing but get up to breathe, because they have nothing to do?"
The case stands in contrast to that of former judge Melody González, deported to Cuba in September 2025 after 484 days in detention, who was indeed listed as a repressor for having issued sentences.
In the heart of Broward, the daughter of Cuban General Ulises Rosales del Toro was held, and there is also Adys Lastres Morera, sister of the executive president of GAESA.
According to data reported in July, more than 1,600 Cubans received deportation orders in June.
Filed under: