Trump administration deports two Cuban immigrants with criminal records to Africa

The Trump administration has deported two Cubans convicted of serious crimes to an African nation, after Cuba refused to take them back.

The Department of Homeland Security said Enrique Arias-Hierro and Jose Manuel Rodriguez-Quiñones were on a deportation flight from Texas that was carrying “some of the most barbaric, violent individuals illegally in the United States,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of DHS.

“No country on earth wanted to accept them because their crimes are so uniquely monstrous and barbaric,” she added.

Statements by DHS and the White House do not say where the migrants were sent nor when they were deported, but lawyers for the eight men on the flight believed their plane was headed to South Sudan on Tuesday. The New York Times reported the plane was in Djibout in eastern Africa.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Boston ordered the administration to maintain custody of those migrants sent to Africa because he was considering whether the Tuesday flight violated his earlier order barring deportations of migrants to third countries without giving them a chance to challenge their removal. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy found the flight had violated his orders.

It is unclear if the men will be given an opportunity to contest their removal to a third country.

According to DHS, Arias-Hierro had been convicted of homicide, armed robbery, false impersonation of an official, kidnapping and robbery. He was arrested on May 2 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Rodriguez-Quiñones, who was arrested on April 30, had been convicted of attempted first degree murder, battery, larceny and drug trafficking, among other crimes.

Both men were about to be released after serving long sentences when ICE detained them, a Trump administration official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly told the Miami Herald. The source said administration officials asked the Cuban government to take them back but Cuba refused, arguing the men had left the island “too young and they didn’t know what to do with them.” Cuban officials were notified that the migrants would be sent to Africa, the source said.

Under a still standing migration deal struck with the Obama administration, the Cuban government agreed to take deported Cubans who had arrived at the United States after January 2017, though it has regularly refused accepting those who had committed crimes in the United States. But the Cuban government only agreed to take migrants who have entered the United States earlier than that date on a “case by case basis.”

The Florida Department of Corrections did not immediately respond Wednesday to questions from the Herald about its communications with ICE in regards to the two men.

Arias-Hierro, 46, has previous addresses in Miami and Homestead, and all of his Florida criminal charges have been in Miami-Dade County, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records.

Records provided by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office show that Arias-Hierro had been arrested in three different robberies in 1997, including one where the victim was pistol whipped after the gun misfired twice. He was convicted in 1999 on multiple charges, including armed robbery and attempted murder.

Arias-Hierro has spent three stints in state prison dating back to 1999, most recently serving a sentence from February 2024 until earlier this month, when he was arrested by ICE.

Rodriguez-Quiñones has lived in DeLand and Orange City in Central Florida but has been arrested twice in Miami-Dade. He has served three prison sentences in Florida, according to state records. According to the FDLE, he has used different identities and has two different birth dates listed in state records, one suggesting he is 53 and the other suggesting he is 58.

He had also been serving a Florida prison sentence when he was arrested by ICE on April 30. Court records show he was convicted of attempted first-degree murder with a weapon for slashing the face, neck and head of a man after a night of drinking in Orlando in 2019. The victim’s injuries were severe enough that had it not been for a deputy’s quick action, he would not have survived, according to a report from an Orange County detective.

While detectives were still investigating that case, Rodriguez-Quinones was arrested two weeks later in Volusia County after detectives executed a search warrant related to drugs at his home in Orange City. Deputies found a rifle, ammunition, marijuana and cannabis oil, cash and miscellaneous drug paraphernalia. They also seized 26 roosters belonging to Rodriguez-Quinones, who said he sold them for $200 to $400 each for use in cockfighting and relied on them as his main source of income.

He was subsequently charged with six felonies and two misdemeanors. His total bond was $76,000, according to a previous Volusia County Sheriff press release. He was arrested on the attempted murder charge from Orange County while he was out on bond in the Volusia County case.

This story was originally published May 21, 2025 at 2:18 PM.