Cubans, once fast-tracked to US residency, now find themselves targets of Trump’s immigration crackdown
W
hen Rosaly Estévez “self-deported” from Miami to Havana last November, US immigration officers bid farewell by removing her ankle monitor. The 32-year-old had been told she was about to be detained, so she left with her three-year-old son, Dylan, a US citizen.
Heidy Sánchez, 43, wasn’t given a choice. She was forcibly removed from Florida last April but, worrying about Cuba’s failing healthcare system, she left her two-year-old daughter, Kaylin, behind with her American husband, Carlos.
“My little girl was still breastfeeding,” she said. “Waiting to get on the plane, my breasts were swollen, and I kept saying, ‘Kaylin must be hungry.’” Sánchez had struggled for years to conceive and Kaylin is her only child.
