Katrina Castro-Menéndez, 41 years old, a former Cuban judge originally from Matanzas, has been held at the Broward Transitional Center since June 12, when six agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intercepted her in a vehicular trap as she was leaving her home in Cooper City, Florida.
Your 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) argues 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 document submitted to the immigration court in Miami states: “Under penalty of perjury, you omitted your affiliation with the Communist Party as a criminal judge in the People's Municipal Court of Centro Habana.”
Katrina denies both charges.
She was 23 years old when she began serving as a judge, and the statutes of the PCC establish that most of its members join after the age of 30.
El País confirmed with at least three additional Cuban judges that belonging to the PCC is not a mandatory requirement to hold that position.
“The prosecutor will never be able to prove that I was, just as I cannot prove that I wasn't. He also says that to be a judge, I had to have been part of the party, but that is not the case. That is an inconsistency,” stated the detained individual to the mentioned media outlet.
A path removed from power
Castro-Menéndez grew up in the countryside, in Matanzas, and studied Law at the University of Havana.
Upon graduating, she was assigned to the court in Cárdenas as part of her social service, where she earned 190 pesos per month, about seven dollars.
"That's why no one wanted to work there, because that was the salary," he recalls.
The former judge claims that the sanctions she imposed never exceeded 12 months and were limited to minor offenses: "It was the man who stole the bike 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.
She left the position in 2014 and worked as a lawyer at the Centro Habana Collective Law Firm.
In 2019, she traveled to Mexico to pursue a Master's degree in Human Rights.
On August 13, 2021, she appeared 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 different 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 stated that she had indeed belonged to the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) and the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), mass organizations to which all Cubans over the age of 14 are automatically incorporated 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 forms: “I didn’t lie, I went through my process with that attorney, 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 because they lack residency or citizenship.
For several days now, they have also been unable to communicate by 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 fears having with her daughter: "How do I tell her that we're going back again? To a country where there are power outages for three days straight? A country where the only thing people do is get up to breathe, because they have nothing to do?"
The case contrasts with 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 very center of Broward, the daughter of Cuban General Ulises Rosales del Toro was detained, and there is 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.
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