Vizcaino rarely leaves his house and avoids crowded places when he does, fearing a sudden detention by immigration police.The 54-year-old artist arrived in the United States from Cuba three years ago, in pursuit of freedom and hoping to use a special legal pathway for Cubans.But like many other Cubans living in the United States, he is finding that the door may already be shut.”I live in panic,” said Vizcaino, who requested the use of a pseudonym for fear of detention.Cuba’s longstanding economic crises have led to shortages of food and medicine, daily blackouts and waves of emigration to the United States, especially to southern Florida.Under a 1966 law, called the Cuban Adjustment Act, citizens from the Communist-led island can obtain permanent legal residency in the United States after one year and one day in the country.But that privilege is changing.Under President Donald Trump’s administration, which came to power on the promise of mass deportations, hundreds of Cubans have been expelled.”I think about arrests all the time,” said Vizcaino.To qualify for the special privilege, Cubans must have been legally admitted at a US border point — and that is where many have run into problems.- Pathways eroding -Many of the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who reached the US between 2022 and 2025 were handed a document called an i-220A, allowing them to enter.However, authorities do not consider it as proof of legal entry — a key requirement to obtain permanent status.That situation has left many Cubans in legal limbo and under the threat of deportation, said Michael J. Bustamante, associate professor of history at the University of Miami.”The special pathways that Cubans have enjoyed since the Cold War have been slowly eroding,” he said.Vizcaino emigrated in 2022, after the Cuban government canceled a cultural project he was working on. Upon arriving in Arizona, he was released with an i-220A document before seeking asylum.Now he’s living near Miami, worried about getting arrested.”I don’t understand why they call me illegal,” Vizcaino said. “If I’m illegal, why did they give me financial aid and a social security number when I entered?”- ‘Mirage of freedom’ -The change isn’t the Trump administration’s work alone. The i-220A was widely issued under Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency. And in 2017, then-president Barack Obama ended the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed any Cuban who reached US soil to be admitted but expelled any intercepted at sea, Bustamante said.But migration privileges have been reduced under the current administration.In 2025, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained an average of 500 Cubans each month, up from about 150 in 2024.Wilfredo Allen, a lawyer with four decades of experience in Miami, says he has never before seen ICE detain Cubans holding i-220A forms at their court appointments for immigration procedures. Allen says high quota targets for deportation are to blame for a policy that does not seem to care about angering the many Cuban Americans who helped Trump win Florida in the last election.”It’s hard to go after criminals,” Allen said. “It’s easier to detain those who follow the rules, those without criminal records, those who go to court to seek asylum.”Detained Cubans have little chance of being deported back to their own country.Havana has refused to accept its citizens back for years, and now does so sparingly, with 863 deportees from the US taken back so far in 2025.So the United States has started deporting Cubans to other countries, such as Mexico.Vizcaino is adamant that he won’t return to Cuba, where he says prison awaits him.He prefers even suicide to going back, especially after experiencing “a mirage of freedom” in the United States.
Vizcaino rarely leaves his house and avoids crowded places when he does, fearing a sudden detention by immigration police.The 54-year-old artist arrived in the United States from Cuba three years ago, in pursuit of freedom and hoping to use a special legal pathway for Cubans.But like many other Cubans living in the United States, he is finding that the door may already be shut.”I live in panic,” said Vizcaino, who requested the use of a pseudonym for fear of detention.Cuba’s longstanding economic crises have led to shortages of food and medicine, daily blackouts and waves of emigration to the United States, especially to southern Florida.Under a 1966 law, called the Cuban Adjustment Act, citizens from the Communist-led island can obtain permanent legal residency in the United States after one year and one day in the country.But that privilege is changing.Under President Donald Trump’s administration, which came to power on the promise of mass deportations, hundreds of Cubans have been expelled.”I think about arrests all the time,” said Vizcaino.To qualify for the special privilege, Cubans must have been legally admitted at a US border point — and that is where many have run into problems.- Pathways eroding -Many of the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who reached the US between 2022 and 2025 were handed a document called an i-220A, allowing them to enter.However, authorities do not consider it as proof of legal entry — a key requirement to obtain permanent status.That situation has left many Cubans in legal limbo and under the threat of deportation, said Michael J. Bustamante, associate professor of history at the University of Miami.”The special pathways that Cubans have enjoyed since the Cold War have been slowly eroding,” he said.Vizcaino emigrated in 2022, after the Cuban government canceled a cultural project he was working on. Upon arriving in Arizona, he was released with an i-220A document before seeking asylum.Now he’s living near Miami, worried about getting arrested.”I don’t understand why they call me illegal,” Vizcaino said. “If I’m illegal, why did they give me financial aid and a social security number when I entered?”- ‘Mirage of freedom’ -The change isn’t the Trump administration’s work alone. The i-220A was widely issued under Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency. And in 2017, then-president Barack Obama ended the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed any Cuban who reached US soil to be admitted but expelled any intercepted at sea, Bustamante said.But migration privileges have been reduced under the current administration.In 2025, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained an average of 500 Cubans each month, up from about 150 in 2024.Wilfredo Allen, a lawyer with four decades of experience in Miami, says he has never before seen ICE detain Cubans holding i-220A forms at their court appointments for immigration procedures. Allen says high quota targets for deportation are to blame for a policy that does not seem to care about angering the many Cuban Americans who helped Trump win Florida in the last election.”It’s hard to go after criminals,” Allen said. “It’s easier to detain those who follow the rules, those without criminal records, those who go to court to seek asylum.”Detained Cubans have little chance of being deported back to their own country.Havana has refused to accept its citizens back for years, and now does so sparingly, with 863 deportees from the US taken back so far in 2025.So the United States has started deporting Cubans to other countries, such as Mexico.Vizcaino is adamant that he won’t return to Cuba, where he says prison awaits him.He prefers even suicide to going back, especially after experiencing “a mirage of freedom” in the United States.
