Leonardo Sánchez, a Cuban permanent resident in the United States, was deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on August 20 and ended up in Equatorial Guinea with a large ventral hernia, without guaranteed medical care and without any authority taking responsibility for his health condition.
A report from the Spanish newspaper El País explains that the deportation flight departed from Alexandria Airport in Louisiana, initially bound for Liberia.
Upon arrival, Sánchez and four other Cubans —Carlos Rodríguez López, Emilio Destrade Correoso, and Darwin Hernández Calvo— refused to disembark from the plane and were taken without prior notice to Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea.
The journey lasted over 36 hours. The deportees remained handcuffed at both their hands and feet, received only sandwiches and water, and were not allowed to use the bathroom. "I urinated in my pants three times," Sánchez recounted in a video call to journalist Carla Colomé from the aforementioned Spanish newspaper.
Sánchez's physical condition exacerbates the case in a special way. Almost ten years ago, in Hialeah, he was the victim of several stab wounds that affected his intestines and left him 40 days in a coma.
Her sister Dorty Sánchez explained that "the skin was left open, and they had to perform a graft and place the colon next to it." Since then, he has undergone nine surgeries and had a tenth procedure scheduled at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
He now lives with a severe ventral hernia, which prevents him from lifting more than 20 pounds, makes it difficult for him to find employment, and causes him unbearable pain, the newspaper reports.
Upon arriving in Equatorial Guinea, he was accommodated at the Bamy hotel in Malabo, owned by the family of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has been in power for nearly half a century.
The facility operates as a de facto detention center under an agreement between the Trump administration and the government of Malabo valued at $7.5 million. Deportees are monitored by armed personnel and are not allowed to leave.
When the authorities took him to a local hospital, the doctors refused to treat him. "At the hospital, they said that if I didn't have documents, the doctors wouldn't take responsibility for me. They asked the officer who brought me if he was responsible, and he said no, he was just following orders," Sánchez recounted.
He stated that he was only given paracetamol. Four days after his arrival, he was still wearing the same clothes he left the United States in, without a toothbrush, toothpaste, or a change of clothes.
"I'm not worth half," he said from the Bamy hotel.
His family, based in Lehigh Acres, Florida, learned about his whereabouts from a video on Facebook posted by another deportee.
“She said there was a boy with an open abdomen named Leonardo Sánchez. And if he has an open abdomen and is named Leonardo, that’s my brother, there’s no one else,” Dorty recounted.
The family had hired a lawyer from the Wannamaker firm to try to secure his release for medical reasons, but they claim that the lawyer scammed them.
The case adds to a growing trend of deportations of Cubans to third African countries, as Cuba does not routinely accept direct repatriations from the United States.
Savi Arvey, director of policies for the rights of refugees and immigrants at Human Rights First, warned that they are "deeply concerned" about the situation in Equatorial Guinea.
"People confined in the hotel are deprived of access to essential medical care and subjected to conditions that further jeopardize their health and well-being, while also enduring physical abuse from the guards," he emphasized.
A federal judge in Massachusetts declared this policy of deportations to third countries illegal in February 2026 for violating due process, although the ruling was temporarily suspended while litigation continues.
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