Cuban man from South Florida deported to Africa says he was sent there without knowing his destination
A 37-year-old Cuban man who lived in South Florida and spent seven months in U.S. immigration detention says he was placed on a plane in handcuffs and deported to the Central African Republic — a country he had never heard of.
More than a month after his deportation, Aristides Fernandez Garcia remains in the Central African Republic, where he and other deportees say they cannot freely leave the building where they are staying.
"We've been here in Africa for 32 days," Fernandez Garcia told CBS News Miami in Spanish.
He was deported to a country the U.S. government warns Americans not to visit. The State Department currently lists the Central African Republic under its highest travel advisory, Level 4: "Do Not Travel," citing unrest, violent crime, kidnapping, landmines, health risks and terrorism.
Fernandez Garcia said he did not initially know where immigration police were taking him.
He said when he asked ICE officers where the plane was headed, he got no clear answer. He said he only learned he was headed to Africa after the journey was underway, during a stop in another African country before reaching his final destination.
Other accounts describe Fernandez Garcia and other Latin American deportees being transported in shackles to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.
South Florida immigration attorney Morella Aguado, who does not represent Fernandez Garcia, questioned the legal basis for sending migrants to African nations when they cannot be returned to their home countries.
"There is no legal basis for sending him to Africa," Aguado told CBS News Miami.
Aguado said the Trump administration has used third-country removals to deport migrants who cannot be returned to their home countries, including Cubans.
She said the key legal question is whether migrants are being sent to the country authorized through their immigration proceedings.
"The third country, let's say it's Ecuador, and they are physically placing them in the airplanes to Africa, and they have no say," Aguado said.
Asked whether she believes the practice is legal, Aguado said: "It shouldn't be at all."
She stressed that migrants sent to Africa were not necessarily ordered removed there by an immigration judge.
"I want to make clear, the people that are being removed to Africa in these planes were not removed by that immigration judge to Africa," Aguado said. "They were removed to a third safe country."
Fernandez Garcia said his arrival in the Central African Republic has left him in legal limbo.
"We are undocumented here in Africa," he said in Spanish.
He shares a bedroom with another migrant and says he does not know how long he will remain there.
Other reports from Bangui describe similar conditions, with deportees saying they need permission from guards to leave.
The deportation followed months in U.S. immigration custody.
"They kept me imprisoned for seven months," he said in Spanish.
He said he was moved through several detention facilities, including the South Florida center known as "Alligator Alcatraz," Krome, and facilities in Louisiana and Texas.
He said he still wants an opportunity to pursue the asylum claim he filed in the United States.
CBS News Miami contacted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about Fernandez Garcia's case.
DHS said ICE arrested Fernandez Garcia in Miami on Jan. 6, 2026, during what it called a "targeted operation."
DHS said he was removed on July 30.
"We are applying the law as written. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period," DHS said in its statement.
"The Trump Administration is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised," the statement continued.
Fernandez Garcia says his deportation has left him thousands of miles from Cuba and the United States, in a country where he has no legal status and no clear path forward.
Aguado said migrants in his situation may have very few options once sent abroad, especially if they have no one to help them leave.
More than a month after being put on that flight, he still does not know how long he will remain in the Central African Republic — or where he will go from here.