The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported on Wednesday the arrest in Florida of Reynaldo C. Zayas, a Cuban citizen who has a final deportation order and a history of criminal convictions, according to the federal agency.
ICE Miami indicated that the Cuban has been sentenced for methamphetamine or amphetamine trafficking, possession of controlled substances, and assault, in addition to a violation of probation related to a domestic violence case.
The agency did not specify in its publication when those sentences were issued, which courts were responsible for the proceedings, or the date on which Zayas received the final deportation order.
Arrest Records consulted by CiberCuba identify the man as Reynaldo Chamizo-Zayas. A record corresponding to Miami-Dade notes an intake into custody on July 17, 2026.
His name reappears in public databases that compile arrests made in Miami-Dade in late September. However, these secondary records do not allow for the determination of the charges or procedures that motivated each entry, so they should not be interpreted as new convictions. The Miami-Dade arrest database lists Chamizo-Zayas Reynaldo among its recent records.
ICE did not immediately provide information on whether Zayas is currently in an immigration detention center or when his deportation might be carried out.
The existence of a final deportation order means that the immigration process determining the alien's removability has been concluded administratively, although the circumstances of each case may vary and there may be subsequent appeals or judicial actions.
The announcement is part of the publications through which ICE Miami disseminates information about the arrest of immigrants with deportation orders and criminal records in Florida. In this case, the convictions attributed to Zayas come from information released by the federal agency itself.
Just one day earlier, ICE announced the cases of Daniel Rodríguez-Ricardo and Salvador J. Sotolongo, both Cubans with deportation orders and criminal records. Sotolongo was arrested in Florida and is currently in ICE custody, while the agency stated that it would take custody of Rodríguez-Ricardo upon the conclusion of his current incarceration.
Also, in early October, ICE detained Jean Marcell Pérez García again in Florida, a Cuban who has been in the United States for over two decades and has convictions for drug-related offenses, fraud, resisting arrest, and robbery. A federal judge had released him months earlier, considering that his immigration detention had been prolonged without a real prospect of deportation at that time.
The situation affects thousands of Cubans. Between October 2025 and June 2026, the immigration courts in Florida issued 4,007 deportation orders against citizens of Cuba, while in June alone, 1,642 orders were issued against Cubans across the United States. Having a removal order does not necessarily mean that the deportation will be executed immediately.
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