A Cuban migrant, Yasmany Moreno de Armas, has spoken out after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported him to the Central African Republic rather than his home country. Moreno, 32, only learned of his destination five hours into the deportation flight on 30 July, when an officer told him the news while allegedly laughing, leaving him stranded in a country he had never visited without a passport. The case highlights concerns about the treatment of migrants amid the Trump administration's intensified deportation drive, with Moreno arguing that deportees should be sent to their home countries rather than unfamiliar third nations.

Moreno, who arrived in the US by raft in 2016 and ran a trucking business in Florida, had his green card application denied after his temporary permit expired. He has now spent a month living in a hotel in Bangui, the Central African Republic's capital, without documents, and fears imprisonment if returned to Cuba, having previously been jailed there after a failed escape attempt. The Department of Homeland Security said it was using "all lawful options" as part of the largest deportation operation in US history; ICE arrested nearly 50,000 migrants in July alone, a 70% rise since February, with Texas and Florida accounting for almost 20,000 of those detentions.