Record numbers of Cuban nationals have been deported from the United States since President Trump returned to office last year, but most have not been repatriated to Cuba. Instead, they have been sent to Mexico, where many arrive with little documentation or money — and in some cases wind up living on the street, Human Rights Watch reported on Wednesday.
The group found that Cuban deportees, many of them older men who had lived in Florida or other U.S. states for decades, have struggled to find shelter, receive medical care and generally get by in Mexico. Unable to return to Cuba, or to legally work or relocate within Mexico for many months, some of the men are living in an “indefinite legal limbo,” the report said.
The report was based on interviews with 53 recent deportees, 41 of them Cuban, conducted between February and March. The oldest man was 83. Several had lived in the United States since they were children or teenagers. Others were once legal permanent residents, but lost their green cards after criminal convictions. Cuba usually will not accept deportees with criminal convictions.
Cubans had long benefited from legal privileges unavailable to immigrants from other countries, but the Trump administration has not hesitated to deport them, all but ending legal immigration from the island.
The New York Times interviewed several of the men before the report’s release. One 59-year-old, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation against his relatives in the United States, described being sent on a 38-hour bus journey from the southern border to Villahermosa, in southern Mexico. There, he said, the Mexican authorities simply told him and other deportees to get off the bus.
Some men eventually made their way to a temporary shelter. But months later, Human Rights Watch found others living across the street from a hospital. In Tapachula, another city in southern Mexico with many Cuban deportees, some have been living in a public park, the report said.
The report laid out numerous concerns about the Trump administration’s so-called third-country deportation policy, which sends deportees not to their home countries, but to other nations that have agreed to accept them. Some have been sent as far as to African countries.
But a vast majority have ended up in Mexico, where Cubans in particular are effectively without a country. Cuban consular authorities typically decline to assist Cuban nationals deported to Mexico, the report found. The Mexican government does not ensure services for deportees from other countries, according to Human Rights Watch, and requires them to navigate a complicated system to apply for asylum.
“Once in Mexico, the avenues for regularizing their status are largely limited to seeking asylum,” the report said, noting that deportees often lack cellphones or email accounts, yet are required to have regular in-person check-ins.
Between Mr. Trump’s 2025 inauguration and March 9, 2026, the United States deported to Mexico nearly 13,000 people who were not Mexican, the report noted. Of those, more than 4,300 were Cuban, the most from a single country.
A significant portion of the Cubans, 41 percent, had been detained in Florida, and 37 percent in Texas. A Human Rights Watch analysis of data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement found that 27 percent had no criminal records in the United States.
The Trump administration has said that third-country deportations allow ICE to enforce final removal orders for people who cannot be returned to their home countries. The White House did not respond to a request for comment late on Tuesday.
In the past, many Cubans with deportation orders ended up staying because repatriating them was not a priority. Many built families and businesses in South Florida, the heart of the Cuban exile community.
But last year, some South Florida Cubans with old criminal convictions began getting detained at their regular ICE check-ins, as the Trump administration was doing with other foreign nationals. Many were sent to a new detention center in the Florida Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz.
Then, word began to spread across the Miami area that some of the men were being taken to the border, released into Mexico and bused by the Mexican authorities to the southern part of the country.
Their families called elected officials and immigration lawyers in South Florida for help. Few spoke publicly about the deportations, both out of fear of retaliation and out of apparent shame over their relatives’ convictions.
One of the Miami men deported to Mexico last August, Raúl Hernández, posted a TikTok video sharing his story. He built a following while streaming live from Mexico and interviewing other deported Cubans.
He considers himself luckier than most: His father already lived in Cancún, so he had a place to go after the bus dropped him off in Villahermosa, more than 500 miles away, he said in an interview.
Mr. Hernández, 29, who arrived in the United States when he was 6, acknowledged that he had a long criminal record that began when he was 15. But he said he has met plenty of Cuban deportees in Mexico who do not, he said.
For many of them, he added, life without legal status in Mexico has been “hell on earth.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Patricia Mazzei is the lead reporter for The Times in Miami, covering Florida and Puerto Rico.
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