The US deports a Cuban who missed his immigration appointment because he was in a coma

Havana/The cases of the Cubans Juan Héctor Villafaña Cedeño and Antonio Frómeta Ascón are a good example of the human rights violations for which Amnesty International (AI) considers that the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) should disappear. According to the organization’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, this Monday, “homicides, detentions and arbitrary and discriminatory incommunication” have been documented, and even “possible forced disappearances.”

Without going to those extremes, Villafaña Cedeño saw firsthand how ICE acts. As he himself says in a video that he sent to journalist Mario J. Pentónthey detained him when he appeared before the immigration authorities in San Antonio, Texas, to explain the reasons why he did not appear before the Court on the date set. “I couldn’t explain that I was in an induced coma and that it lasted several months in which I was fighting for my life,” he said. The migrant understood that he had a period of 30 to 180 days to explain why he missed court. However, they did not allow him to present his reasons.

Villafaña Cedeño says that while he was imprisoned he became ill from his nerves and so, under these conditions, he was put on a plane and deported to Cuba.

The man claims that he continues to “expectorate from his lungs” and his secretions are dark. “I know I’m not okay.” Furthermore, he says that he has had to buy the drugs on the black market but has not been able to have a CT scan performed. “At home they give me treatments so I can more or less endure this process.”

Villafaña Cedeño entered the United States on September 27, 2023, he did so through Nogales Arizona “with the CBP One appointment.” After the process, they gave him “a parole of two years”. During his stay he dedicated himself to working and tried to comply with the statuses to legalize his stay.

Another is the case of Antonio Frómeta Ascón, who has been in ICE custody for more than a year because Cuba did not accept him in 2025 and the migrant refused to be deported to Mexico “due to the country’s insecurity.”

Frómeta Ascón was arrested on August 14, 2025 in West Palm Beach, Florida, during Operation Tidal Wave. According to the record cited in the case, he had a history of assault in Palm Beach and was sentenced to five years of probation. A year after serving his sentence, a judge issued a deportation order after he failed to appear for an immigration hearing.

According to the medium El Paso MattersICE attempted to deport him to Cuba in November 2025, but Cuban authorities would not accept it. Subsequently, the man refused to be transferred to Mexico and claimed fear for his safety. “I’m Cuban, not Mexican,” he said.

In March, the migrant filed a petition for habeas corpus before the Federal Court of the Western District of Texas to question his continued imprisonment without there being a deportation that can be carried out.

The case relates to the United States Supreme Court precedent in Zadvydas v. Davis (2001), which establishes criteria for the detention of people with removal orders when their deportation cannot be carried out. The US Government indicated last July that the deadline for carrying out the expulsion “is currently unknown.”

The case also took on another dimension because Frómeta claims to have witnessed the moments prior to the death of the Cuban. Geraldo Lunas Campos55, who died on January 3 while in ICE custody.

The El Paso County medical examiner determined that Lunas Campos died of asphyxiation caused by compression of the neck and torso and classified the death as a homicide. “They handcuffed him and I saw them beat him as they took him away. They murdered him, there is no other way to say it,” he added.

In a report published last Friday, AI details situations that it considers irregular during the immigration control operations of this agency of the Donald Trump Government in Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New Orleans and Washington. AI’s list of accusations is extensive: “Unlawful killings, some of which could constitute extrajudicial executions; arbitrary and discriminatory incommunicado detentions, including possible forced disappearances, in some cases under conditions of confinement, which could violate the prohibition of torture; and violent repression of peaceful protests,” among others.

All of this is what leads the general secretary of the NGO to declare: “Enough is enough, we have to abolish it.”