Her story has been a long obstacle course that now faces the highest barrier, one whose path remains unknown.<\/p>\n
\u201cI arrived in the United States in 2019 by crossing borders,\u201d says Heidy, who also asserts that her decision to emigrate from Cuba was based on having a family. \u201cHere [in Cuba] it was impossible; I had already tried all the long-term treatments, and none of them worked.\u201d<\/p>\n Her entry into the United States wasn\u2019t a bed of roses either. After traveling alone, like thousands of Cubans, the long and dangerous journey from Nicaragua, Heidy entered the Migrant Protection Protocols program<\/a> implemented by Trump during his first term, which required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases were processed in the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to enter the United States and return to Mexico. I went to the first court, and I couldn\u2019t attend the second court due to very personal issues. A few days later, I returned, spoke to the officer at the bridge, and explained what had happened, and he told me he\u2019d let me through at the judge\u2019s discretion.<\/p>\n \u201cThey didn\u2019t take me before the judge; they simply told me I already had a deportation order and that they were going to take me to a detention center. I spent nine months in detention, with no case being filed. Supposedly, they were going to deport me. I was in Laredo, Louisiana, Miami, Louisiana again, Laredo again, and Taylor, which is where they released me under supervision as an I-220B.<\/p>\n \u201cSince I was in the detention centers, my family hired a lawyer to try to reopen the case. We never gave up, we always tried to do something. I had five lawyers. My husband said, \u2018Let\u2019s do things right, let\u2019s get married legally, file the petition,\u2019 hoping and trusting that at some point they would give me the opportunity to legalize my status, but that wasn\u2019t the case.\u201d<\/p>\n This was the path that kept Heidy not only in an irregular status, but completely defenseless from a legal standpoint.<\/p>\n Despite this, the Cuban woman embarked on a completely normal life. She studied and trained as a nursing assistant, a profession she practiced until the very end (she was a caregiver for an elderly person who is blind and deaf). She met her current husband, with whom she has been in a relationship for four years, and achieved her dream of starting a family.<\/p>\n \u201cMy life in the United States was very peaceful, from home to work and from work to home. I never had a single ticket. The goal was to have a family, which took a lot of work, but that was our goal, our dream, to have our little house, our baby, and that\u2019s what happened,\u201d she tells us.<\/p>\n Her baby girl is the result of in vitro insemination, the only procedure that was valid for Heidy, who says she spent more than 20 years in treatment before emigrating.<\/p>\n \u201cI brought all my diagnoses from here, and the doctor said, \u2018We\u2019re not going to waste any time.\u2019 We lost the first embryo; after they implanted it, it didn\u2019t take. We spent about six months waiting to insert the other embryo, and it was the one that took. That baby girl is my miracle,\u201d Heidy says through tears, which have been constant since she attended that immigration appointment on that fateful Tuesday, April 22. Two days later, she arrived deported to Havana.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they released me in the United States, they left me under supervision. Every so often, every six months, a year, I had to go to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) appointments. They would simply sign the form again and give me a date for another year, for example.<\/p>\n \u201cSuddenly, they scheduled an appointment for me in November, then in March, and suddenly in April again, and that caught my attention because it was so early. I told my lawyer<\/a>, and she quickly got on the ball.<\/p>\n \u201cThey called me on Monday afternoon, I was working, and they told me that the officer assisting me decided to change my appointment from a week earlier \u2014 that was, on a Monday\u2014 to Tuesday. I told them I needed to get ready at work, find someone to cover for me because right now I can\u2019t say I\u2019m going to be absent tomorrow because that person would be neglected. And I also have a baby girl and I need to get organized. They said no, that the officer wanted me to show up.<\/p>\n \u201cThey locked me in that office with my lawyer. She explained everything about the baby, the entire process I\u2019d gone through, all my documents in order. But the officer said that was no longer valid, that the decision had already been made.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when they told me to call the baby\u2019s father, for him to pick her up, that I\u2019d be taken into ICE custody,\u201d she relived her nightmare for OnCuba<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey never asked me if I could take the baby with me. On the contrary, I screamed at them, crying, and begged them, \u2018Please don\u2019t take my baby away from me. That\u2019s all I have. I worked so hard to have my baby girl. Don\u2019t take my baby away from me.\u2019 They didn\u2019t give me that option; they never asked me,\u201d she responds to one of the most important points in this case, which differs from other deportations the Trump administration has carried out in recent weeks, in which the young children of immigrants have been deported along with their parents despite being U.S. citizens by birthright.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they took my baby away, they quickly put me in handcuffs and took me to a cell. That was early in the morning. At around 3 p.m., they took us on a bus to the Pinellas jail. We spent the night there.<\/p>\n \u201cThe next day, they transferred us back to the ICE offices in Tampa, until 4 p.m., when a bus came to take us to Miami. We arrived around 10:00 p.m. We waited at the Krome Processing Center until dawn, on the bus, handcuffed. They took us to BTC (Broward Transitional Center) at around 3:00 a.m. There, they gave us the gray jumpsuit and made us change quickly, and then we went to the airport,\u201d she recounts about the experience she and 81 other Cubans who were deported on that same flight, handcuffed at the hands, ankles, and waist during the process.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone with their own story,\u201d says Heidy, although hers is undoubtedly one of the most heartbreaking.<\/p>\n \u201cThe plane left around 10:00 or 10:15 a.m., more or less,\u201d she details, concluding her account of her 48 hours she had lived, which upended her life and that of her family, where her baby girl is truly the most affected.<\/p>\n \u201cThe moment that plane took off, I said, \u2018And now when am I going to see my daughter again?\u2019 As the plane was moving away, I was losing my hope. It\u2019s very difficult. We went through so much to have that baby, and to have her taken from me like that. Seeing how she is now suffering is very hard. I can cry, I can scream, but she doesn\u2019t know how to express what she\u2019s feeling,\u201d she says desperately.<\/p>\n Heidy is currently staying with her mother and stepfather in the latter\u2019s home in Havana. Like many other Cubans, she sold her property to emigrate and makes it clear that \u201cwe\u2019re on loan here,\u201d referring to the property, which also has obvious construction problems.<\/p>\n She arrived in Cuba with what she was wearing when she attended the ICE appointment, and the money she had at the time was given to her in a check that she has no way to cash on the island.<\/p>\n Her baby girl is at home in the United States, being cared for by her father and paternal grandmother.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, the baby is very restless, she won\u2019t stop crying, and she won\u2019t eat her meals. It\u2019s horrible at bedtime because she calls me, she screams at me. I have to walk two blocks to be able to get a connection and sing to her to calm her down. She doesn\u2019t know, she doesn\u2019t understand why her mom isn\u2019t here. The only thing she says to me when we talk is \u2018Mom, come,\u2019\u201d says Heidy, who, among other pains, experiences having to pump and discard the milk from her breasts, from which her baby was still feeding.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m suffering, but the baby is suffering more than I am, and they\u2019re not considering the consequences it will cause her. That\u2019s what worries my husband and me most right now, the baby\u2019s health.\u201d<\/p>\n Three months ago, her daughter had a severe seizure that is currently under medical investigation and undiagnosed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe baby has been having epileptic seizures lately. She\u2019s being treated by a neurologist. We\u2019re waiting for results; she just had a scan and an EKG. They\u2019re doing things to see if it\u2019s affecting her brain, if it could cause any disorder,\u201d she explains, concerned about the consequences this situation could have on the baby\u2019s current instability.<\/p>\n More than ten days after her deportation, and despite the visibility her case has achieved and all the efforts her husband and lawyer are making in the United States, there has been no statement from the U.S. government so far.<\/p>\n Nor does Heidy maintain any ties to the island\u2019s authorities in Cuba, beyond the care she received upon arrival.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t feeling well when I entered; my breasts were leaking milk, and they immediately supported me with a psychologist who encouraged me and gave me strength, but that\u2019s it. We don\u2019t want anything to do with politics, we\u2019re not interested; the only thing that matters to us is reuniting the family,\u201d she makes clear.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/heydi-sanchez-deportada-7a-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe beginning<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/heydi-sanchez-deportada1a-1140x775-2.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/heydi-sanchez-deportada-12-1.jpg\")
<\/a>The nightmare<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/heydi-sanchez-deportada-2-1.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/heydi-sanchez-deportada-hija-3-1.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Heydi-Sanchez-1-2.jpg\")
<\/a>The endless days afterward<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/heydi-sanchez-deportada-1-1.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/heydi-sanchez-deportada-hija-2-1.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cWe don\u2019t want anything to do with politics\u201d<\/h3>\n