Cuban man in South Florida says he was deported to African country he’d never heard of without being told his destination
“We’ve been here in Africa for 32 days,” Aristides Fernandez Garcia said
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A Cuban man who spent months in U.S. immigration detention said he was shackled, put on a plane and sent thousands of miles away to a country he had never heard of — without ever being told where he was going.
Aristides Fernandez Garcia, 37, was living in South Florida before he was taken into immigration custody, according to CBS News. After spending roughly seven months in detention, he said he was deported to the Central African Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_African_Republic
“We’ve been here in Africa for 32 days,” Fernandez Garcia told CBS News Miami in Spanish in an article published on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
Fernandez Garcia said he did not learn his final destination before the flight. He recalled asking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers where the plane was going but said he received no clear answer. It was only after the journey was already underway, during a stop in another African country, that he realized he was being taken to the Central African Republic.
He was among a group of Latin American migrants sent to Bangui, the country’s capital, on July 30.
Now, Fernandez Garcia said he is stuck in a country where he has no legal status and little idea of what happens next.
“We are undocumented here in Africa,” he told the outlet.
The Central African Republic is also a country the U.S. State Department has warned Americans not to visit. The country is under a Level 4 travel advisory, the department’s highest warning, citing risks including violent crime, kidnapping, terrorism, civil unrest, landmines and health concerns.
Fernandez Garcia said he and other deportees are staying in a building where they cannot freely come and go. He shares a bedroom with another migrant and said he has no clear timeline on how long he will remain there.
The deportation marks a dramatic end to his seven months spent in U.S. immigration detention. Fernandez Garcia said he was arrested in Miami on Jan. 6 and moved through several detention facilities, including the Krome North Service Processing Center in South Florida, the facility commonly known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” He was also in detention centers in Louisiana and Texas.
“There is no legal basis for sending him to Africa,” Morella Aguado, an immigration attorney who reviewed the situation but does not represent Fernandez Garcia, told CBS News Miami.
The deportation of Cuban migrants to countries they have no ties to is part of a broader immigration strategy known as “third-country deportation,” according to CNN. Rather than sending someone back to their country of origin, the U.S. can seek to remove them to another country willing to accept them.
When asked whether she believed the practice was legal, Aguado responded: “It shouldn’t be at all.”
The Department of Homeland Security defended Fernandez Garcia’s removal, saying ICE arrested him during what it described as a “targeted operation” and that he was ultimately removed from the country on July 30, DHS told PEOPLE in a statement.
“We are applying the law as written. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period,” the statement read.
“The Trump Administration is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised,” the agency added.
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Read the original article on People
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