Sailin Escalona has not set foot in Cuba for seven years, not embraced her daughters, and not seen her mother or brothers. This September, she finally returns, although not in the way she dreamed when she crossed 12 borders, including the Darién jungle, to reach the United States.
In a series of posts on her TikTok account @sailin1981, Sailin shared, with an honesty that garnered her tens of thousands of views, how she came to sign her voluntary departure before a judge. The story is not simple, but she tells it straightforwardly.
She arrived in the United States in 2021 via the southern route: first Uruguay, then crossing on foot through the Darién, and finally making her way to the U.S. border. Two years prior, she had been in Uruguay and five years on U.S. soil. Upon arrival, she was detained for a month. When she was released, she did so with a status of I-220A. In short: a limbo.
El caso de Sailin refleja la compleja realidad migratoria que enfrentan miles de cubanos en EE.UU. Sigue toda la actualidad sobre procesos migratorios, salidas voluntarias y más en nuestra sección de
For five years, she tried to regularize her situation. Nothing. Meanwhile, her youngest daughter, who was five when Sailin left, turned 12. "I’ve thrown in the towel; I’m tired of fighting against the impossible," she wrote in the comments of one of her videos. "Out of 1,000 people with I-220A, only one achieves residency. There are people waiting since 2017."
The final decision came during his second hearing before a judge. There were two options: voluntary departure or formal deportation. With deportation, the judge would have imposed ten years without the possibility of returning to the United States. With voluntary departure, that door remains slightly ajar. "It was my decision in front of a judge, but because they don’t give you more options," he explained to those who didn’t understand why he was leaving.
The fear of being detained again also weighed on her. "They wanted to keep me in detention for deportation, and given the circumstances, I preferred to request my exit. I know it wasn't the right time, but when I arrived here, I was detained for a month, and I didn't want to go through that again," she replied to a follower who was urging her to hang in there a little longer.
Her videos struck a very sensitive chord. The one announcing her voluntary departure accumulated over 65,000 views and nearly 230 comments, many from Cubans and Latin Americans with almost identical stories: the Darién, the I-220A, the years of waiting, families torn apart. Several wrote to her encouraging her not to give up. She replied to them with kindness, but with clarity: "I don't tell anyone to give up; this country offers many opportunities, but I no longer had any options."
What hurts the most in her story—and she herself acknowledges this—is not the failure of migration. It is the time. Five years without being able to hug her daughters, her mother, her brothers. “Putting your life in danger and sometimes facing death up close doesn’t mean your dreams come true,” she wrote in August.
But Sailin is not defeated. In her most recent post, the description says it all: "God give me strength, I go with my daughters, and not everything is lost; there are still battles to fight."
His case adds to those of other Cubans with I-220A who have chosen voluntary departure due to the impossibility of regularizing their status, a phenomenon that has intensified in 2026 and reflects the plight of thousands of Cuban families separated after years of waiting without resolution.
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