ICE Repatriates 170 Illegal Immigrants to Cuba

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stated on Feb. 18 that it has deported 170 Cuban nationals, including individuals convicted of murder and other violent crimes, back to their home country this month.

A plane carrying the deportees left for Cuba on Feb. 9, the first deportation flight in 2026 bound for the Caribbean nation. ICE linked the deported individuals, who came from states across the country, to criminal convictions and allegations including rape, drug trafficking, and other dangerous offenses.

Yondeivis Wong Den-Hernandez was convicted of aiding and abetting improper entry by an illegal alien in Texas, ICE said. He was also convicted in Florida of second-degree murder. The victim was a 17-year-old girl.

Raul Duquenzne-Batista was convicted in Kansas of several violent crimes. His charges included aggravated assault, kidnapping, battery, and burglary, in addition to rape and criminal use of weapons charges. ICE said he was a member of the Los Habaneros gang and also admitted to federal officials to previously serving 20 years in a Cuban prison for robbery and breaking and entering.

Another man was arrested at large during an operation in Philadelphia. Alexander Padron-Marten was convicted of trafficking a controlled substance.

Gaully Quintana Martinez was taken into custody by federal officers from New Orleans after serving a sentence in a correctional facility in the state for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

“Immigration detainers make everyone safer,” ICE said on X.

Deportation flights to Cuba have existed for years, but the Cuban government was hesitant to receive mass deportation flights from the United States, the agency said.

“But under the Trump administration, these repatriation flights are occurring in record numbers,” ICE said.

After a two-year pause during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration restarted deportation flights to Cuba in April 2023.

According to ICE, Cuban national Orlando Sanchez-Sarria committed several crimes in two sanctuary cities on opposite sides of the country. In Los Angeles, he was convicted of grand theft, and in Philadelphia, his convictions included trafficking of a controlled substance, conspiracy to commit trafficking, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, receiving stolen property, and use of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime.

ICE officers in St. Paul, Minnesota, took custody of Miguel Ramon Caveda-Perez from the South Dakota State Penitentiary through an immigration detainer. He was accused of rape and possessing an altered or invalid driver’s license.

President Donald Trump began deportation flights of illegal immigrants to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba only weeks after taking office in 2025.

“President Trump is not messing around, and he’s no longer going to allow America to be a dumping ground for illegal criminals from nations all over this world,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a February 2025 interview.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also sent termination notices in June 2025 regarding a Biden-era parole program for Cubans, which also included Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.

The notices informed illegal immigrants let into the United States that—effective immediately—their parole and parole-based employment authorization is revoked.

“This program was abused by the previous administration to admit hundreds of thousands of poorly vetted illegal aliens into the United States,” DHS said in its June 2025 statement.