Cubans who built lives in Florida are being deported thousands of miles away to Africa, but sympathy is colliding with something much uglier back home: political payback.
A furious discussion among Florida Reddit users erupted after the Tampa Bay Times reported that Cuban immigrants once living in the state had been sent to the Central African Republic under President Donald Trump’s controversial third-country deportation strategy.
Some liberal-leaning commenters expressed horror at the conditions facing the deportees. Others had a far colder reaction toward Florida’s famously Republican Cuban-American political community.
One commenter wrote: “Yep. They voted for this. Kind of difficult to have sympathy for them.”
Another declared: “I hope Cubans got what they voted for.”
There is an important catch. The immigrants actually deported could not have voted for Trump because they are not U.S. citizens, a point another Reddit user immediately raised. The anger instead appears directed at Cuban-American citizens, friends and relatives who supported Trump while he promised an aggressive immigration crackdown.
That political tension is not imaginary. An October 2024 Florida International University poll found 68% of Cuban Americans surveyed in South Florida planned to vote for Trump. AP has since reported continued support for tougher immigration enforcement among many South Florida Latinos, even as Trump’s policies increasingly affect immigrant communities close to home.
Florida’s Immigration Politics Just Became Painfully Personal
The human reality behind that political argument is grim. Yasmany Moreno, 32, told the Tampa Bay Times he believed he was simply being transferred when officers placed him aboard a plane in Texas. Five hours into the flight, he says an officer finally told him they were headed to Africa.
Moreno and dozens of other deportees ended up in Bangui, Central African Republic, reportedly without passports or any clear idea what would happen next. Moreno described the situation as “completely inhumane.”
Other Cuban deportees from Florida told the Times they were effectively trapped, unable to leave their accommodation freely and uncertain whether they could ever return home.
Third-country removals are now a wider part of Trump’s immigration strategy, with migrants from several nationalities sent to African nations rather than their countries of origin. Recent cases have continued to trigger criticism over legal protections, detention and what happens after deportees arrive.
For Florida, though, the controversy has become something more politically explosive. Trump’s immigration crackdown is no longer an abstract campaign promise for one of the communities that helped strengthen his support in South Florida. And judging by the Reddit reaction, some of his fiercest opponents have little interest in letting his supporters forget it.
