Cuban migrant Yasmany Moreno de Armas says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers deported him to the Central African Republic, laughing as they revealed his destination five hours into a flight from the United States.
The 32-year-old business owner, who lived and worked between Tampa Bay and Miami for a decade, has now been stranded for a month in a hotel in the capital city of Bangui without a passport, legal documents, or knowledge of what will happen to him next.
Moreno entered the U.S. on a raft in 2016 and previously owned a Florida trucking company that supported his parents in Orlando. He was shunted between federal detention facilities for over a year before being placed on a removal flight on July 30, believing he was merely being transferred to another domestic facility.
Five hours into the flight, an escorting officer informed Moreno that the plane was heading to Central Africa. "I honestly thought it was a bad joke because the officer laughed, like he was making fun of me," Moreno told The Tampa Bay Times.
"It is a completely inhumane situation," Moreno said in a WhatsApp message. "What are we doing here? It is a question we ask ourselves every day."
Speaking to CBS News, Moreno added: "We cannot leave, we don't have documents and we're suffering and missing our families, in a continent we don't know."
"I miss my family, the people, my friends, the streets," said Moreno, who notes that he has asthma and diabetes. "I had been in the United States for 10 years. Now, I feel like I'm in prison."
Moreno said that if a person is to be deported, it should be to their home country rather than another country where they do not know the culture. He also told CBS News that he potentially faces trouble should he be returned to Cuba, as the communist government imprisoned him following his first attempt to flee.
U.S. immigration status and federal policy
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security responsible for enforcing immigration laws and conducting domestic detentions and foreign removals. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it is using "all lawful options" to perform "the largest deportation operation in history."
"When an individual is no longer in ICE custody then ICE will no longer be responsible for them," the agency added in its statement, calling the position "common sense."
Moreno had applied for a green card after the Obama administration ended a policy that allowed Cubans who made it to the U.S. to stay in the country. However, his temporary permit expired, allowing the U.S. government to deny his green card application and leaving him subject to detention and removal.
The Central African Republic, where Moreno was sent, is a landlocked nation in Central Africa bordered by Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, and Cameroon. It is on a list of nations that the U.S. State Department has warned Americans to avoid travel to.
Nationwide surge in ICE arrests
Moreno's removal comes amid a sharp escalation in federal enforcement actions under President Donald Trump. Immigration agents made 49,571 arrests in July, a 15 percent jump from 43,021 in June and a 70 percent increase since February, according to ICE data provided to the University of California, Berkeley. The total represents the highest monthly figure of Trump's second term.
The detention figures mark a significant increase from enforcement levels immediately preceding the administration. In the month before Trump returned to office in January 2025, ICE arrests hovered around 8,000, according to PBS News. Texas and Florida alone accounted for nearly 20,000 of the total detentions recorded in July.
ICE has credited its recruitment drive for the arrest spike. The agency employed roughly 29,000 people in June, up from 21,000 when Trump returned to office in January 2025, according to The New York Times.
Expansion of local police partnerships
Alongside direct federal hiring, ICE has rapidly expanded a program that deputizes local police to arrest immigrants. Roughly 14 percent of ICE arrests nationwide are now tied to those partnerships.
Florida has credited the program with 15,000 arrests, while Texas says local officers have made another 10,000 detentions on behalf of ICE. In smaller states, such as Wyoming and West Virginia, local police partnerships account for more than half of all ICE arrests.
The latest ICE data shows that arrests doubled in two Democratic-led states, New Mexico and New Jersey, even as both states passed laws earlier this year restricting state officials from cooperating with ICE. Sparsely populated states such as Vermont and Montana also saw their arrest numbers double.
Trump has poured billions in new funding into ICE through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and expanded contracts with firms such as Palantir Technologies to assist with immigration and border enforcement.
For Moreno, who remains living out of a hotel in Bangui without a passport or documents, what comes next remains completely unknown as he remains separated from his family in Florida.
