The immigration lawyer Liudmila Marcelo concluded this week with two new permanent residencies obtained for Cubans holding the I-220A form before a judge in Orlando, bringing the total number of individual victories to three so far in 2026. It is noteworthy that all three green cards were won using the same arguments and before the same magistrate.
Marcelo announced it this Thursday in an interview with Tania Costa, during the day when the outcome of the federal hearing of the class action case led by lawyer Mark Prada was also revealed. "But not everything is bad, Tania, not everything is bad," said the attorney before recounting what happened on Tuesday in the Orlando Court.
The two residences this week were the result of a collaborative effort between Marcelo's firm and that of attorney Lisette Sanchez, from Lisette Sanchez Law, PA, in Orlando. "It was a collective effort because the case truly belonged to attorney Lisette Sanchez, from Orlando, a personal friend, who asked me to please appear in court for her as she is facing a health issue," Marcelo explained.
The judge who presided over the hearing listened to the arguments from both sides—the defense and the prosecutor—and granted residency to the two Cuban clients with the same reasoning he had applied in a previous case involving Marcelo: that the release of those individuals was not a new act of parole, but rather constituted parole from the very beginning.
"It's not that he is granting a parole; rather, the release that these individuals experienced was under parole," the attorney clarified, adding that this is precisely the argument Prada is pursuing in the class action suit: "Not that Cubans should be granted parole, but that it should be recognized that their release was a parole."
This point is central to the legal debate. Form I-220A is a release order under supervision issued by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the federal government argues that it does not equate to formal immigration parole and therefore does not enable status adjustment under the Cuban Adjustment Act. Several Immigration judges in Orlando have accepted the contrary argument, resulting in individual victories amidst a situation of deep uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of Cubans.
"We're continuing, as we say in good Cuban fashion, the back-and-forth," said a viewer of the weekly program hosted by Liudmila Marcelo with journalist Tania Costa on CiberCuba, after it was revealed that in the hearing involving lawyer Mark Prada regarding the I-220A, the judge stated that she has jurisdiction over the case and scheduled a new hearing for this month.
Last May, Marcelo obtained the first residence for a Cuban with I-220A in Orlando, which was considered a pioneering victory. In July, the federal government began to appeal those individual decisions, according to specialized media reports.
This Friday, federal judge Jacqueline Becerra, from the Southern District of Florida, dismissed the government's attempt to dismiss the class action lawsuit Bello-Rubio v. Noem, filed by 992 Cubans with I-220A. The magistrate granted seven days to each party to argue whether the case should be certified as a class action, with a new hearing scheduled for late September.
Marcelo emphasized that certification as a class is the crucial step: “Everyone across the country, no matter where they are, in what part of the United States, in which state, under which district, can benefit from this if a class action lawsuit is led,” he stated, referring to the impact a favorable ruling would have if the case progresses as a class action. Advocacy groups estimate that between 500,000 and 600,000 Cubans could be affected by the final outcome.
Los casos de cubanos con I-220A siguen avanzando en las cortes de inmigración de EE.UU. Mantente informado sobre estos y otros procesos migratorios en nuestra sección de
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