In President Donald Trump's second term, Cubans have felt unprecedented immigration enforcement pressures — and a new study by the libertarian Cato Institute shows just how heavy they’ve become, including soaring immigration arrests and plunging green card approvals.
The report by the nonprofit Washington D.C. think tank examines the migrant arrest and legal residency application crisis for all migrant groups. But it says that “Cuban immigrants have faced an even more concerted targeting” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, than most communities.
Since Trump took office last year, arrests of Cuban migrants have shot up 463%. At the same time, approval of green cards, or permanent residence, for Cubans has dropped by almost 100%.
Cubans — because they’re escaping a communist dictatorship — have historically had an easier immigration path under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. That supposedly puts them on a fast track to green card status.
But the Trump administration has put up barriers, such as freezing Cubans’ green card application processing by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS — making them subject to detention and deportation.
The Cato study, in fact, is titled: "USCIS Cut Green Card Approvals in Half to Help ICE Arrest Legal Immigrants."
READ MORE: Majority of South Florida Cubans support a U.S. military strike, poll shows
USCIS has defended its drastic green card reduction policy as a matter of enhancing national security and stepping up vetting of applicants from countries the Trump administration has designated as "high-risk."
But on Monday, a federal judge in Maryland ordered USCIS to resume processing green card requests for a group of migrant plaintiffs from those countries, a ruling that could lead to a more general continuation.
Either way, the Cato report includes case studies such as José Miguel Suri Hernández, who came to the U.S. legally in 2024 under the Biden administration's humanitarian parole program for Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitian and Nicaraguans.
Even though Suri's parole expired this year, the study says, he should still be eligible for green card application under the Adjustment Act. But because of USCIS' refusal to process that application, the study says, Suri was instead detained by ICE — and as of last month remained in detention, and his application has now been suspended for seven months.
Cuban-Americans remain among President Trump's staunchest supporters — but that is largely due to his tougher policy on communist Cuba. A recent Miami Herald poll showed more than two-thirds of Cubans in South Florida disapprove of the Trump administration's ramped-up arrests and deportations of law-abiding Cuban migrants.
That growing frustration may prove a political headache in Florida for Trump and Miami's three Republican Congress members in November's mid-terms elections. Cuban-American U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar in particular has had to emphasize her more lenient immigration stance as she faces a more competitive race in her 27th District.
