News · Migration
ICE kept deporting Cubans to third countries during the court block, The Trib reports
An investigation by the United States outlet The Trib, published in Spanish by elTOQUE, documents transfers of migrants to the Mexican border without prior notice while a court ban was in force, and recalls that in May Cubans were the largest group of people deported to third countries, according to Human Rights Watch.
Deportations to third countries make it possible to expel immigrants even when their countries of origin refuse to take them back. More than 25,000 people have been sent to 29 countries, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a project of Refugees International and Human Rights First that tracks these figures.
In February, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked deportations to third countries and recognized deportees' right to receive notice and to challenge their removal. The Trib found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) kept taking people to the border without prior notice while the court ban was still in force, according to interviews with migrants and immigration lawyers. The Supreme Court has since allowed those deportations to resume.
Dolores Freixa, who arrived in the United States at the age of 11 during the 1980 Mariel boatlift and lost her permanent residency after a criminal conviction, says that in June she was woken at 3:00 in the morning at the Eloy Detention Center, in Arizona, and put on a bus without being told where it was going. She was the only Cuban woman among another woman and some 40 men who, she was told, had voluntarily signed for their return to Mexico. Freixa refused to sign and was taken back to Arizona, but her case was an exception, according to the report.
“We are seeing a pattern: they put them on a bus without telling them anything, they take them to the Mexican border and they force them to get off”, said the immigration lawyer Liudmila Marcelo, in remarks translated by Yamacoa. Constant transfers between detention centers and the pressure to sign documents in high-stress situations can prevent migrants from understanding their options, and in some cases that pressure includes threats of more serious legal consequences if they refuse to sign, according to the lawyers consulted.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson replied that “it is categorically false that we would pressure anyone into accepting their own deportation”, and asked the outlet for the names and dates of birth of the migrants interviewed in order to verify the cases. The Trib declined to reveal their identities.
In May, Cubans were the largest group of people deported to third countries and most had been taken to Mexico, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Documents from Mexico's National Migration Institute indicate that Mexico spent at least 13.5 million pesos moving Cubans deported by the United States from the northern border to the southeast of the country, an operation that contradicts the statements of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who said in June 2025 that Mexico had not agreed to become a receiver of third-country deportees.
Sources: elTOQUE
Data updated: 2026-10-24T16:00:00.000Z