By Eileen Sosin — Belly of the Beast May 7, 2025

HAVANA, Cuba — Heidy Sánchez lived in Florida for five years after immigrating from Cuba. She worked in Tampa as a nursing assistant, paid her taxes and had no criminal record.

None of this would stop her world from being torn to pieces. On April 22, Heidy was detained while attending a routine check-in at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices in Tampa. She was separated from Kailyn, her 17-month-old, U.S.-born daughter whom she was still nursing.

“My husband said he heard my screams from the other side of the door. ‘Please don’t take her away! Please!’” said Heidy, her voice breaking.

Two days later, Heidy was deported.

The separation was abrupt. She wasn’t allowed to pack any clothes or other belongings or say goodbye to her family. Her purse was left in her husband’s car.

Two weeks later, Heidy is back in Cuba, desperately hoping she will somehow be reunited with her daughter.

“My life is there in Tampa,” she said. “I breathe for that little girl in Tampa. I have nothing here.”

“SHE WAS MY MIRACLE”

Kailyn is Heidy’s only child.

Heidy and her husband Carlos went through a long fertility treatment before finally giving birth to Kailyn.

“She was my miracle,” Heidy said through tears. “She was the child we had longed for.”

Heidy and Kailyn were inseparable.

“I woke up each day to take care of my baby girl,” said Heidy. “She’d wait for me to breastfeed her, bathe her, take care of her. All my attention was focused on her.”

Heidy says that since she was deported, her husband has struggled to get Kailyn to eat. Kailyn looks for her all over the house, grabs her shoes, and keeps asking where her mother is.

“She’s awake until the middle of the night,” she said. “I had to record myself singing lullabies to get her to sleep.”

Heidy describes Kailyn as an active, happy, and playful child. However, she is undergoing treatment for epileptic seizures.

“Just yesterday she had a scan, and I’m not there,” said Heidy. “They say that she shouted: ‘Mom mom, mom!’ for me to defend her, to hold her, to support her.”

FAMILIES RIPPED APART

Immigrant families have been ripped apart by the Trump administration’s deportation policy. Trump officials have said that immigrants who are detained can decide whether to take their U.S.-born children with them when they are deported.

“That’s up to their family to decide where the children go,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently ​told NBC​.

But Heidy said she was given no choice: “The [ICE] officer saw my phone, which had a photo of my daughter, her father and me. He said: ‘Oh, she has a family photo. Call the father and have him come and get her.'”

Heidy is not the only immigrant who has been unwillingly separated from their children since Trump assumed office.

“There’s a Venezuelan mom who was deported to Venezuela and the child was left here in foster care,” said Claudia Cañizares, Heidy’s lawyer. “In the same flight that we had Heidy, there was actually one of our clients that was a dad. He was the main provider of his family and he was removed to Cuba.”

Heidy immigrated to the U.S. in 2019 through a U.S. program which involved her waiting in Mexico, near the Texas border, before being summoned to the U.S. for an immigration court hearing.

She said she couldn’t attend the hearing because she feared for her life.

“People [trying to cross the border] were being kidnapped, were being robbed over the documents and they would lose them,” said Cañizares. “We kept pleading for the program to be cancelled because of this, because people could not show up to the hearings…Heidy was one of those people.”

When Heidy was finally able to cross the border, she was detained. She spent nine months in detention centers before being released. She was allowed to stay in the United States as long as she attended regular check-ins at ICE offices.

“They would give me an appointment for another date, within six months, or a year, and everything stayed the same,” she said. “I could go on with my normal life, and go to my appointments with ICE, and that’s what I did.”

Heidy says she became apprehensive after Trump’s election.

“When he said he was going to do mass deportations, you always tense up 

a little bit, and say, ‘Wow, I could be on that list, it could happen to me,'” she said. “We always had the fear that it could happen. And it did.”

CUBANS NO LONGER THE EXCEPTION

During his first term, Trump adopted a “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants, which led to children being stripped from their parents at the U.S. border. 

Cuban immigrants, who had long enjoyed a relatively privileged status compared to people coming from other countries, were largely exempt from Trump’s crackdown.

That may be changing.

Heidy was one of 82 Cubans deported in handcuffs to Havana last month. Other Cuban immigrants report being detained while attending regular check-in interviews at ICE offices.

Cañizares said that she hopes that Heidy’s case will create more awareness of the suffering caused by the Trump administration’s migration policies.

“We want the public to turn out to bring awareness about what is going on currently in the U.S.,” she said.

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May 6 (Cuba Si/Orinoco Tribune) In a strong display of defiance and solidarity, over 5 million people marched in the cities of revolutionary Cuba on May 1. Through these impressive marches, the Cuban people stood united and strong against US designs to crush Cuba for its refusal to succumb to imperialism or go back to the neo-colonial status it held prior to 1959. Just as the over 60 year old blockade of Cuba seems to reach its most draconian, more still is piled on, yet now more than ever, the US finds itself isolated as the Cuban people stand strong and solidarity with them grows.

International meeting of solidarity with Cuba, anti-imperialism and against the resurgence of fascism
The day following the march, the theme of solidarity was carried forward to the International Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba, which took place at the Palace of the Conventions. 969 delegates were present, representing 269 organizations from 39 countries.

The dialogue was led by the first secretary of the central committee of the communist party and president of the republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez; member of the political bureau and secretary of organization of the central committee of the party, Roberto Morales Ojeda; the minister of foreign affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla; the secretary general of the CTC, Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento; and the president of ICAP, Fernando González Llort.

The meeting was dedicated to the legacy of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, on the 25th anniversary of the concept of revolution, the 65th anniversary of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), and the 22nd Congress of the Cuban Workers’ Central (CTC).

President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez emphasized in his talk that solidarity is not just a word but an essential component against the increased aggression of the Trump administration.

“Thank you for being the voice of Cuba in the world. This meeting shows that, before the empire, the answer is more solidarity, a solidarity that symbolizes resistance to neocolonialism and support for the self-determination of peoples; a solidarity that becomes a weapon of struggle, that transcends borders and that we assume, as Fidel said, to be an ethical duty in the fight against neocolonialism.”

The inhumane policy of the United States against Cuba
Carlos Fernández de Cossío, director general for the United States at the ministry of foreign affairs, spoke about the damage caused to Cuba by US policy.

“Our country is going through times of great adversity, reflected in the material and economic conditions of our people. This is a scenario planned by the US government to try to make life as difficult as possible for Cubans,” he said.

He recalled the words of the popular leader of the US, Malcolm X, warning that nothing teaches more than adversity.

“The people of Cuba are not discouraged by the current circumstances. They take on challenges and develop their creativity, the fruit of the teachings of the revolution,” he said.

The sentiment in the US, according to the diplomat, is that the largest of the Antilles belongs to them and that they have the right to dictate the course of the nation, which explains the incessant dispute since Cuba achieved true independence and began to exercise its right to self-determination.

This prohibits the importation of products originating in the United States and the use of the most important international payment systems. Most Americans are denied the right to travel to Cuba, and threats are made against investors who bet on the national market.

Regarding Cuba’s inclusion on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, Fernández de Cossío said that it has had serious repercussions for tourism on the island and is exacerbating its economic situation.

Solidarity: the bridge that unites the oppressed of all latitudes
The hero of the republic and ICAP president, Fernando González Llort, referred to the need to promote cooperation and the right of peoples to self-determination in his speech.

“The response to neo-liberal capitalism must be unity and internationalism. We have a duty to forge alliances against the common enemy: the great elites who control the world,” he said.

“If capital and imperial ambitions are transnational in nature, solidarity among peoples must also transcend borders,” he said.

According to González Llort, the rise of figures such as Donald Trump is a reflection of a world in crisis and of a 21st-century fascism, which seeks technological advances to control and alienate the working class.

ForGonzález Llort, the promotion of dignified peace in defense of sovereignty is key in the battle against imperialism. However, it must be a peace that respects the full dignity of people and is grounded on social justice.

“That is why Cuba stands with Palestine against the Zionist regime that, for more than 75 years, has murdered, kidnapped, abused, and besieged the Palestinian people. We stand with Puerto Rico in its struggle for independence, we support the cause of the Sahrawi people, we support the legitimate rights of indigenous communities, and we endorse the declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace.”

González Llort conveyed the opposition of the largest of the Antilles to NATO interference, as well as its desire for a world free of nuclear weapons.

“While the military-industrial complex of the great powers manufactures wars for its own benefit, Cuban medical collaboration, which has helped more than five million people around the world, is denigrated,” he said.

He criticized the way in which hegemony is established through cultural colonization, which makes what is foreign seem desirable and what is one’s own seem inferior. In this scenario, resistance means creating art, schools, and popular communication.

“Unity and solidarity play a decisive role. The latter, not as charity, but as a revolutionary and humanist bulwark. It is the bridge that unites the oppressed of all latitudes,” he said.

González Llort condemned those who do not defend their sovereignty are as appendages of the empire.

Medals of Friendship
Near the end of the event, the Cuban president awarded medals of friendship to 2 long-time Cuban solidarity activists: Cheryl Labash, co-chair of the National Network of Solidarity with Cuba in the United States, and André Chassaigne, former deputy and president of the France-Cuba Friendship Group of the French National Assembly.

As per usual, the event went out with a performance of love and solidarity from the Cuban National Children’s Theater; La Colmenita.