Luis Enrique Mojena, a Cuban who defected from a medical mission in Venezuela in 2022 and crossed the Darién jungle to reach Miami, was deported to the Central African Republic on October 22 after a court notification arrived in his mailbox a day after the hearing date.
Mojena, originally from Sandino, Pinar del Río, shared her story with journalist Daniel Benítez in a video posted on Facebook from a "safe house" in Bangui, where she is with other deportees under constant surveillance and searches when entering and leaving. "We are living in abnormal conditions," she said at the end of her testimony.
"In 2022, I deserted from a medical mission in Venezuela, traversed the Darién jungle, and arrived in the United States in 37 days, taking 41 days to reach Miami," he explained. On U.S. soil, he was released under parole with form I-220A, with annual supervision and an electronic device.
After moving to Houston —where she became certified as a massage therapist— her immigration hearing was scheduled for December 1, 2026.
The problem arose when a court date was moved up to June 22: the notification letter arrived in his mailbox on the 23rd, one day later.
The next day, he voluntarily appeared before ICE with the document in hand to clarify the situation. He was arrested immediately and spent 120 days detained in Montgomery County.
"I will never let the system down. If the system fails me, as it is still doing right now, I have nothing to do," he stated in the video.
During his detention, a judge canceled an initial attempt to deport him to a third country. The Supreme Court reinstated those deportations on September 29, 2026, and the appeals filed by Mojena were unsuccessful.
When the agents handcuffed him for transfer, they didn't even allow him to read the judicial documents they handed him.
The flight departed from the military airport in Alexandria, Louisiana, more than three hours behind schedule, amid the resistance of the deportees. "The flight took off while we were all standing, no one seated, nobody wanted to sit down, everyone was pushing to move the plane," Mojena recalled.
The aircraft made stops in Senegal, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, and a fourth country that Mojena could not identify, before landing early in the morning in the Central African Republic.
The deportees traveled handcuffed for the entire journey; the handcuffs were removed on board just before disembarking to create the appearance of a voluntary arrival.
"We were victims of psychological and physical abuse; even a colleague, a fellow countryman up there, was beaten severely, slapped while being handcuffed," he reported.
That flight was the largest individual transfer of Cubans to Africa to date: at least 69 deported Cubans —64 men and five women— out of a total of approximately 90 migrants.
Upon arriving in Bangui, UN personnel received them and accommodated them in a safe house. The Central African Republic is classified by the State Department as a level 4 risk ("do not travel") due to armed conflict and the presence of militias.
Another Cuban deported to Bangui in August, Arístides Fernández García managed to leave on October 19 after nearly three months in the country.
Immigration attorney Wilfredo Allen warned that, although Cubans deported without a final asylum decision have the possibility to appeal to federal courts, a ruling from the Fifth Circuit issued on October 23 effectively blocks most of those appeals in that region.
La historia de Mojena ilustra los riesgos que enfrentan los migrantes cubanos ante el sistema judicial migratorio de EE.UU. Sigue los últimos desarrollos en nuestra sección de para mantenerte informado sobre deportaciones, audiencias y derechos migratorios.
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