Trump Is Deporting Cuban Migrants to Countries They’ve Never Lived In

Cuba received 127 deportees from the United States this week, bringing the total this year to 882 people returned to the island by U.S. immigration authorities.

But some migrants aren’t being sent home despite the Cuban government’s continued cooperation with U.S. deportation efforts. 

Four Cuban men were among a group of deportees flown to Liberia last week. They refused to get off the plane because Liberia was “not their country” and they would face danger there. U.S. officials told the migrants they would be returned to the United States, but instead flew them to a detention facility in Equatorial Guinea.

Immigrant rights advocates say there is no medical staff at the hotel-turned-holding site, and guards have withheld food and physically abused migrants.

Other Cuban deportees have landed even farther from the island. Yasmany Moreno de Armas told CBS News he was deported to the Central African Republic, a country he said he'd never heard of before landing there.

The State Department has issued a Level 4 Travel Advisory for the country, warning U.S. citizens to avoid travel there due to risk of “unrest, crime, kidnapping, landmines and terrorism.” U.S. authorities have also deported Cuban nationals to Eswatini and South Sudan.

Thousands more Cubans are stuck in Central America. A recent Atlantic story describes Tapachula, Mexico, near the Guatemala border, as a “dumping ground” where the U.S. has been busing deported Cubans — some stripped of their green cards after decades in the U.S. — rather than deporting them to their home country.

Not even Cuban musicians are exempt from the immigration crackdown. Last week, ICE detained Latin Grammy-winning percussionist Degnis Bofill at the Miami airport despite his pending asylum case, days after Cuban musician Andy García was detained in Los Angeles.