Why Was Yamile Alcantu Sent to Mexico, Not Cuba? Inside Trump's Third-Country Deportations of Cubans

Havana refuses most pre-2017 arrivals, but an unwritten US deal now sends thousands south, near Guatemala

Yamile Alcantu deportation, Cubans deported to Mexico, third-country deportations — ICE removed about 6,000 people born on the island to its southern neighbour in a single year, federal lawyers told a court US Immigration and Customs Enforcement / Public domain

The US sent Yamile Alcantu, a Cuban who lived there for about 25 years, to Mexico, not Cuba. She came long before 2017. US officials have said Cuba has historically refused to accept many Cuban nationals ordered deported. Mexico takes many under what US lawyers call an unwritten deal.

Human Rights Watch says Cubans like her long-stayed in the US, largely because Cuba often refused to take them back. US deportation policy shifted under Trump's second term: between 20 January 2025 and 9 March 2026, the US sent 4,353 Cubans to Mexico. In April 2026, lawyer Willy Allen said more than 42,000 Cubans had final removal orders.

How Alcantu Ended Up in Mexico

Alcantu came to the US through a visa lottery. She built a life in South Florida with her partner, Wayne DeMario, a guitar shop owner. DeMario has said a 2008 traffic stop found three Xanax pills in her handbag. She later became subject to a deportation order. For years, she checked in once a year with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US agency that deports migrants.

Agents held her at a check-in in June 2025. ICE kept her in Florida and Louisiana for months. By February 2026, she had not seen a judge, DeMario said. CiberCuba says Homeland Security listed her among its 'worst of the worst', a label DeMario rejects. ICE sent her to Mexico, not the Cuba the couple had feared. 'If I had voted Democrat, I wouldn't have lost my wife,' DeMario, who backed Donald Trump in 2024, told Reuters this month.

Why Cuba Refuses, and Mexico Accepts

A January 2017 US-Cuba agreement ended the wet-foot/dry-foot policy and set out new arrangements for returning Cuban nationals ordered removed. A June 2025 White House fact sheet said Cuba had long refused to take back its own deportees. One deportee told Human Rights Watch that Cuban officials turned him and 15 others away from a July 2025 flight.

In a March 2026 filing, US government lawyers cited a 'standing (unwritten) agreement' under which ICE sent about 6,000 Cubans to Mexico in a single year. On 29 September 2026, the US Supreme Court agreed to review a challenge to the third-country removal policy and stayed the lower-court judgement pending review. In June 2025, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her country takes them in on humanitarian grounds. She added that it has not agreed to be a third country. Alcira Silva Hava, who wrote the rights group's report, told Al Jazeera many orders to leave named Cuba, not Mexico.

What Happens to Cubans Sent to Mexico

Mexican officials bus many Cubans south to Tapachula, near Guatemala, or Villahermosa. The journey to Villahermosa can take about 40 hours. Both face high levels of violence, much of it linked to organised crime, the rights group's report says. Most people it spoke to were given about 10 days' permission to stay and advised to seek asylum, with no clear longer-term legal status.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told the Miami Herald that people who enter illegally and break US laws could land in a third country. About a quarter of Cubans sent to Mexico had no US criminal record, the rights group found. Michael Bustamante, a historian in Miami, told NPR they in effect have no country.