Janflora ✍📚✌🇺🇸

ICE deports 10 Cuban refugees—to African country they've never been to. "This is a kidnapping," woman said. "Tricked us saying we were going to Miami—ended up in Africa. Hands & feet shackled entire 25 hour flight. "They hit me, pulled my hair, threw me against plane windows," said another woman. "It was horrible! They forced me down among men." Several women showed marks and bruises on their arms—and swollen feet that made it hard to walk after being shackled. Their passports and phones were confiscated or destroyed by ICE agents. Leaving them without identification or a way to contact anyone. Now worry about being detained by local police in Bangui, Central African Republic—because they have no documents or legal status. Posting first full length, English translated, and credited video here to help raise awareness.

Women sent away to the Central African Republic share that they were tricked about where they were headed and mistreated the whole way there. Ten women from Cuba, Peru, and Venezuela report that U.S. officials claimed they were heading to Miami or Mexico before suddenly flying them to Bangui. They share stories of being tied up for hours, roughed up, and terrified about the kids they had to leave behind. Ten Latin American women kicked out of the U.S. and sent to the Central African Republic say nobody told them their actual destination until they were already in the air. Instead of landing in Miami like some thought, they touched down in Bangui, thousands of miles away from home and family. According to Telemundo, the group consists of eight Cuban women, one Peruvian woman, and one Venezuelan woman. One of them summed it up like this: “They told us we were going to Miami, then Mexico, and in the end we ended up here in Africa.” CiberCuba shared what she said based on a video posted by Cuban deportee Yasmany Moreno de Armas. The women's stories go way beyond just getting sent to the wrong place. A Cuban woman named Yari shared, “They hit me; three grabbed me, pulled my hair, and forced me down among men,” as reported by Diario de Cuba. On top of that, CiberCuba mentioned that some women showed up with swollen feet after being chained up by their hands and feet for over 25 hours. Keep in mind these are just allegations from the women and the news outlets covering them; there hasn't been any official, public investigation to prove everything that went down on the plane. Being cut off from their kids and loved ones has made the whole ordeal even more shocking. Telemundo shared that Yoli Pintado was heartbroken over having to leave her kids back in Peru. In a later report, the women talked about how much pain their families are going through just trying to figure out what happened and when they'll ever reunite. Plus, having no phones or ID papers makes staying in touch nearly impossible. The women also talked about landing in a spot where they can't even handle basic daily tasks. In chats with Telemundo 51, five Cuban women mentioned they don't have any paperwork and can't easily get cash from family back home. One noted, “We don’t speak the language,” and another put the scary reality this way: “It’s as if we’re already dead.” One woman mentioned she deals with high blood pressure and anemia, and she had to go without her meds. On top of that, the group complained about gross living conditions and having no clue how long they're stuck in Bangui. These immediate worries tie into a troubling track record. Human Rights Watch pointed out that two people from an earlier batch of U.S. deportees got locked up by local police in Bangui in what looked like an shakedown attempt, though they got out after the International Organization for Migration stepped in. HRW also noted that the IOM warned an earlier group that the nation doesn't have a working asylum system and struggles to house or help deportees, especially if more show up. Right now, the U.S. State Department is telling Americans to stay completely away from the Central African Republic due to violence, crime, kidnappings, landmines, health hazards, and terrorism. They point out that medical care is super limited, meds are hard to come by, and travelers really need malaria pills. Because of that, the women running out of their prescription drugs is a genuine red flag, though nobody has officially confirmed that any of them have actually caught malaria. The exact size and flight path for these October transfers are still kind of murky. Telemundo reported that the women mentioned stops in Senegal, Mali, and Uganda. On the flip side, flight tracking and reports about an ICE charter flight on October 22 listed stops in Senegal, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, and the Central African Republic. Even the number of Cuban nationals on that flight doesn't quite match up in the reports, and without a public passenger list, there's no way to know for sure which plane carried the women Telemundo interviewed. These deportations are happening right in the middle of a messy legal battle over whether the U.S. government even has the right to drop people off in third-party countries. Back on September 29, the Supreme Court put a lower court's block on the government's third-country removal policy on hold and agreed to take up the case. They set oral arguments for December 9, but they haven't handed down a final decision on whether the whole thing is legal. Public records also don't show what kind of notice or chance to fight their removal each woman actually got, or what's going on in their individual immigration cases.