By Jesús Arboleya on December 24, 2025
The Donald Trump administration has, for the first time, placed new Cuban immigrants in legal limbo, which could lead to their deportation. This has disrupted the relationship between the privileges granted to Cuban immigrants, unparalleled in US history, and the role played by these migrants in US policy toward Cuba.
According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, there are nearly 2.5 million people of Cuban origin living in the United States, equivalent to 80% of the emigration from Cuba and their descendants.
Around 1.8 million, or 72%, were born in Cuba, confirming an extraordinary increase in migration in recent years, given that in 2020 this proportion was around 50% of the Cuban-American population.
In the 2022-2023 biennium, some 625,000 Cubans were processed by the U.S. Border Patrol (CBP). Although they left Cuba legally, with no pending cases or obstacles to their return, they presented themselves to the U.S. authorities as applicants for political asylum. Almost all of them were accepted on a temporary basis, but with the advantage that after one year of residence in that country, they could qualify for the Cuban Adjustment Act and obtain permanent residence in the United States.
Another 110,000 Cuban immigrants entered the country during those years through the so-called “humanitarian parole” program established by the Biden administration for various groups of immigrants of different nationalities. They were also awaiting immigration adjustment, but in the case of Cubans, they could still resolve their status through the Cuban Adjustment Act, established solely for them.
The problem arose when the Donald Trump administration rejected the legitimacy of these processes and, for the first time, placed Cuban immigrants in legal limbo, which could lead to their deportation. In this way, the relationship between the privileges granted to Cuban immigration, unparalleled in U.S. history, and the role played by these migrants in that country’s policy toward Cuba has been violated.
In the case of Cuba, the United States implemented mechanisms to encourage emigration that it has not repeated in any other country. Its objectives have been to drain the economy of its human capital, introduce a factor of instability into society, create a social base for counterrevolution abroad, and discredit the revolutionary process internationally.
Cuban migrants were then accepted indiscriminately in that country, could quickly obtain residency, and enjoy specific programs for their settlement and integration into American society. The Miami “golden exile” was built on these premises and also on other more twisted ones.
In violation of the law prohibiting its operation within the national territory, the CIA established the world’s largest station in Miami for the war against Cuba and invested considerable resources in the creation of an operational infrastructure that catapulted Cuban immigrants to positions of privilege in the economic and political life of the region.
With the impunity resulting from this association, Cuban counterrevolutionaries organized the most lethal and ruthless terrorist groups on the continent, collaborated with the crimes of extreme right-wing dictatorships and Latin American criminal gangs, assassinated people within the United States itself, and imposed extreme right-wing positions on local politics in Miami.
Many Cuban-Americans also functioned as operators, bankers, and legal assistants for the drug trafficking networks that were established in South Florida at the end of the last century and turned the region into one of the main gateways for drugs into the United States.
Miami, which already had a history of mafia rule and corruption, became the epicenter of anti-Cuban politics and the capital of the Latin American right wing. This placed Cuban-Americans on the far right of the US political spectrum, an orientation quite foreign to Cuban traditions but well suited to the “deep south” of the United States, where they have settled.
From this platform, Cuban-American power groups were formed and rose through the US political structure, reaching their pinnacle in the current Donald Trump administration, when Florida was chosen as a refuge for the president—persecuted by the New York courts—and headquarters for the MAGA movement.
So far, this is a well-known story. The paradox is that the rise of Cuban-American politicians to more prominent positions within the US political system corresponds to the absolute deterioration of the privileges that, until now, have distinguished Cubans from other immigrants in the United States.
There are several reasons for this phenomenon. First, the strategy against Cuba, which justified exceptional treatment for Cuban immigrants, has changed. Inspired by a proposal from the Cuban-American right, the US government no longer encourages emigration but limits it as much as possible in order to increase domestic social tensions. As a result, the Cuban-American right wing, which largely rose to prominence in US politics by exploiting the exceptional status of Cuban immigrants, is now complicit in their repression.
Secondly, the privileges granted to Cuban immigrants have been possible in a different economic environment and through treatment that equated them with the white American middle class, which is not in line with the current needs of the system or with the anti-immigrant and xenophobic philosophy that serves as the basis for Trumpism.
Furthermore, what was relatively acceptable white, middle-class immigration, which made up the so-called “historic Cuban exile” of the early decades, became “despicable Latin trash” as popular sectors joined the migratory flow from Cuba.
Why are Cuban-American politicians spared from this discriminatory logic? Because in reality it is not a problem of race or national origin, but of class. Ultimately, even the president’s wife and the richest man in the country are immigrants, and in these cases, few remember this “accident.”
While Cuban-American tycoons and the politicians who represent them reap the benefits of Trumpism, Cuban immigrants have fallen into the category of “each and every one of the damn countries that have been flooding our nation with murderers, parasites, and welfare addicts,” in the words of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
As a result, the doors to Cuban emigration have been slamed closed, they are not even accepted as visitors, and those who arrived in recent years are limited in their ability to take advantage of the Adjustment Act or any other benefits they previously enjoyed. Even the residency and citizenship processes for those who arrived earlier have been paralyzed, and a “thorough review of those already processed” has been announced.
For the first time, Cuban immigrants live in fear of ICE raids on the streets of Miami and being deported to Cuba or any other country in the world. Work permits have been canceled, and even bank accounts can be seized if the legality of their immigration status in the United States cannot be proven.
What impact could this situation have on the political behavior of the Cuban-American community, the only group of Latino voters that overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in the last election?
Although those who voted for Trump, that is, those who are citizens, have not been the most affected by this policy, and many of them may even join in the discrimination against their own people, as often happens in American society, at least some of them must feel affected by the climate of insecurity and contempt that has been established by this administration, and this could be reflected in their political behavior.
This does not mean that major changes are foreseeable in the political structure that controls the Cuban-American community, since the influence of the extreme right has never depended on the actual capacity of this vote, but rather on the functions they perform within the system and their articulation with sectors of American power, especially those linked to the Republican Party.
Nor is a “revolution” to be expected in the ideological sphere, where the conservatism of most Cuban Americans is associated not only with the conflict with the Cuban Revolution, but also with the reactionary currents prevailing in the state of Florida itself, regardless of which party is in power. Added to this is the difficulty of breaking the rules of traditional consensus, which link people to their reference group, especially when they have served to rationalize a decision as traumatic as emigrating from their country of origin.
In short, it is highly unlikely that a figure such as Zohran Mandani will be elected by Cuban-Americans, but discontent with Donald Trump’s policies could lead to the defeat of one of the three Republican congressmen of Cuban origin in the state, who are in practice the main spokespersons for the Cuban-American far right in the Capitol, and this would imply a significant change in the existing political dynamic.
A significant sign, although not solely attributable to changes in the Cuban-American vote, is the recent election of Eileen Higgins as mayor of Miami, defeating by a wide margin a candidate publicly endorsed by Donald Trump himself. She is the first woman to govern the city, as well as the first Democrat and non-Cuban-American to hold that position in the last thirty years.
Cuba is also facing a new situation with regard to migration. Although, in the midst of a very unfavorable economic situation, restrictions on emigration will effectively lead to increased domestic tensions, it is also true that containing the migratory wave is beneficial for the country, given its impact on the economy, demographics, and social psychology.
It is therefore necessary to review the existing policy, which requires major economic and social changes, in order to offer alternatives for fulfillment to potential migrants, to provide for the treatment of returnees, and to establish innovative mechanisms for the integration into national life of Cubans living outside the country, whose ties with their families must be strengthened as migration opportunities are reduced. The answers cannot be the same as always, because the questions are different.
Source: Progresso Weekly Semanal