Trump’s plans for Cubans in the US: ‘Maybe they want to go back. They’re going to have that choice’

Without elaborating on a plan, President Donald Trump has hinted in recent weeks at his administration’s position on Cuba: he began by repeatedly calling it a “failed nation” that “will fall very soon,” and has ended by speculating about a possible dialogue with the Cuban leadership. Amidst all the anticipation surrounding what might or might not happen in the near future, one idea has received less attention, although Trump, very much in line with his domestic policy, has taken pains to reiterate it in several of his recent statements: the possibility that Cuban migrants will return to an island that welcomes them back. Or, in other words, including deportations on the negotiating table.

This is what happened with Venezuela in February of last year, when the oil-rich nation began accepting, after a long hiatus, the first deportation flights following a visit from Trump’s special operations envoy, Richard Grenell. At the time, Nicolás Maduro called it a “favorable and positive step” in relations between the two countries. Almost a year later, the Chavista leader was being ousted from power in a U.S. Special military operation. Although all indications are that the strategy with Havana will involve economic pressure rather than a military intervention like the one carried out in Caracas, the issue of migration could also be part of the dialogue with the Cubans.

“We are talking to Cuba. We have tens of thousands of people that were forced out of there... Maybe they want to go back. They’re going to have that choice... For years, they’ve been talking about this happening. Now it’s happening,” Trump told NBC News earlier this month.

It isn’t the only statement of this kind the Republican has made on the matter. In January, on Air Force One, he asserted that many Cuban Americans would be “ very happy when they’re going to be able to go back and say hello to their relatives.” And at a meeting with CEOs of several oil companies at the White House earlier last month, he asserted that “there are many people in this country who want to go back to Cuba to help. They arrived here without a cent, had nothing, and have become very wealthy in our country. They want to return and assist Cuba.”

For María José Espinosa, a foreign policy expert and executive director of the Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas (CEDA), these kinds of remarks align with Trump’s view of migration as a temporary phenomenon linked to political conditions that, according to him, could change. Furthermore, it could be interpreted as a message directed at the Cuban-American community in South Florida, Espinosa adds. “This rhetoric resonates with sectors of the exile community that have historically prioritized issues such as the restitution or compensation of confiscated properties, the protection of legal claims under the Helms-Burton Act, and differentiated benefits for the Cuban diaspora in a potential transition process. In this sense, the ‘return’ narrative functions as a signal, both internally and externally, about the conditions under which the United States would be willing to reconfigure its relationship with Cuba.”

Although Washington’s intentions toward Havana remain unclear, the first deportation flights to Cuba in 2026 mark a turning point in the migration policies of both countries over the past year. On February 9, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 170 Cuban migrants with criminal records. In a statement revealing some of their identities, the Cubans were described as “murderers, kidnappers, rapists, drug traffickers, and other criminals.” The charges range from second-degree murder to possession of an invalid driver’s license.

This is the first group of its kind that Cuba has accepted in decades. Until now, the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel had refused to receive criminals or ex-convicts who arrived in the United States before 2017, when deportation agreements were reinstated as part of the restoration of diplomatic relations with the Obama administration. Therefore, at least 3,757 Cubans deported from the United States in 2025 ended up in third countries such as Eswatini, in Africa, and, to a greater extent, in Mexico, where some 4,883 Cubans arrived last year.

The pattern of deportations to the island, however, may be beginning to change. “The fact that the recent flight included people with records of serious crimes suggests a possible shift—whether temporary or strategic—in Cuba’s stance toward the migration negotiations between the two governments,” Espinosa asserts.

During January—the same month as the attack on Venezuela and when Trump declared a national emergency regarding the island—there were no deportation flights to Cuba. The following month, a group of Cubans who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay since mid-December were deported to Havana on the February 9 flight, which also carried the migrants with serious criminal records.

“These developments suggest that migration cooperation between the United States and Cuba is increasingly influenced by broader political and economic pressures, with Cuba negotiating from a position of limited room for maneuver amid a U.S. Oil embargo that threatens to plunge the entire island into darkness and trigger a humanitarian collapse,” Espinosa argues.

The Trump administration has had a particularly harsh impact on a community that for years had easily navigated the legalization process in the United States. Cubans have not escaped the orchestrated migrant persecution across the country, at a time when more than 500,000 citizens of the island find themselves in a legal limbo in the U.S.

Trump has deported more Cubans than any other president, despite the Cuban-American community guaranteeing him a majority of votes in Florida in November 2024. During his second term alone, 1,668 Cubans have been deported to the island, bringing the total number of Cubans deported during his two terms to 5,053.

Many, amidst a crisis like the one Cuba is experiencing today, fear having to return to a country without electricity, with very little food or public transportation. Roxana Torres can’t imagine her husband’s return; he has been detained for months at the notorious Alligator Alcatraz detention center in Florida. For at least four months, she and her one-year-old son have stood every Sunday outside the center demanding the release of Maikel Rojas Pérez. “I never imagined this would happen to us,” says Roxana. Amid the current economic embargo on the island, she lives with the “fear of his deportation,” of being separated from him indefinitely. “My husband is reluctant to leave; he wants to be here with his family.”

Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández, a historian and migration expert at the University of Central Florida, believes Trump’s statements about Cuban migrants are part of “additional pressure” within a much larger package of “pressures on Cuba.” He also believes that conditions on the island are not conducive to receiving the millions of migrants who have fled in recent years. “I don’t think the conditions are right for Cuba to absorb a population that is already accustomed to certain things. I don’t think many will return to settle permanently. Under the current circumstances, the government cannot provide the people with enough food, drinking water, or electricity. And the last thing the Cuban regime wants is for emigrants to return in large numbers.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition