The Government of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has deported at least 4,353 Cubans to Mexico, more than a third of the total number of migrants from third countries expelled to Mexican territory, where they are “abandoned,” denounced Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The deported Cubans are more than a third of the almost 13,000 non-Mexican immigrants that the United States has expelled from January 20, 2025 to March 9, 2026 to Mexico, where “many have been left abandoned to their fate, without access to housing or medical care,” the civil organization detailed in a report.
«They are abandoning us here to die. There is no help, we can’t work because we don’t have papers. “They don’t give us anything, nothing… How are we supposed to eat, pay rent?” Harold A., a 58-year-old Cuban deported to Mexico, told HRW.
Cubans are the largest group of non-Mexican migrants expelled to Mexico, which has received nearly 70% of the total of more than 18,000 deportations from third countries in the Trump Administration “under an undisclosed agreement between both governments,” the document added.
While the Government of Joe Biden (2021-2025) deported less than 100 Cubans to Mexico per month, the latest data available from the Trump administration shows a figure greater than 500.
The organization recalled that “for years, Cuban nationals were not a priority target of United States deportation policies,” but that “changed drastically under the second Administration” of Trump.
HRW denounced that Cubans deported by the US have suffered “abuse” and “inhuman detention conditions in immigration detention centers in the United States.”
He also accused the US authorities of “violating the right to due process” of Cubans, in addition to expelling them to Mexico without documentation, money or other personal belongings.
The group interviewed 53 nationals deported from the United States to third countries in Chiapas and Tabasco, states on Mexico’s southern border, including 41 Cuban men, most of whom had lived in the United States, especially in Florida, “for years or decades after fleeing Cuba due to repression.”
Upon arriving in Mexico, HRW documented that Cubans “are trapped in cities with high levels of violence” and “without a clear path to lasting legal status.”
“Outside of the refuge system, which many cannot access, the Mexican government does not offer any avenue for these people to receive lasting legal status, which exposes them to being exploited by criminal organizations,” warned Alcira Silva Hava, author of the report.
The treatment of Cuban immigrants in the United States contrasts with Trump’s policy towards Cuba, marked by strong pressure on the island’s communist government in search of a regime change, as reflected in the criminal indictment against former Cuban president Raúl Castro presented last week in Miami.
