The Cuban immigrants that the Trump administration is sending to Mexico as part of its mass deportation agenda are struggling to find shelter, healthcare, food and work while living in cities with extreme violence perpetrated by organized crime, according to a report published Wednesday by an international human-rights organization .

Cuban immigrants told the watchdog group Human Rights Watch that U.S. authorities had pressured them into going to Mexico by threatening to send them to faraway countries or prolonged detention, without the opportunity to challenge their deportations. They were sent on buses to Mexico, where authorities then took them to Villahermosa or Tapachula in southern part of the country, according to the report.

Once in Mexico, the Cubans face “almost complete absence of government support” and many “find themselves without access to shelter or food, and vulnerable to high levels of violence. Some described being unable to access healthcare, including older people who could not access essential medications,” the report says. They also had a hard time legalizing their status in Mexico and faced barriers to asylum and other protections, Human Rights Watch found.

The report casts a spotlight on how the Trump administration is getting around Cuba’s longtime unwillingness to take back its nationals who left the island a long time ago or were convicted of certain crimes. It also reflects the findings of a previous Miami Herald investigation, in which Cubans sent to Mexico told reporters they had spent weeks sleeping on the streets searching for work and food.

One grandfather with several U.S. citizen children and grandchildren told Human Rights Watch: “They’re sending us here to die.”

Human Rights Watch estimates that Cubans make up 4,353 of the deportees out of nearly 13,000 the U.S. has sent to its southern neighbor between January 2025 and March 2026. A federal judge in a lawsuit estimates that number is even higher, as many as 6,000 according to government figures.

“The Trump administration is using Mexico as a dumping ground for people it cannot deport to their countries of origin, including many Cubans who have been in the United States for decades. The Mexican government is not offering them any way to obtain durable legal status outside of the asylum system, leaving many in limbo with no shelter, no medication, and at the mercy of criminal organizations,” said Alcira Silva Hava, who works in the Refugee and Migrant Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

The organzation found that over a quarter of the Cubans sent to Mexico did not have a criminal history. The rest had either convictions or pending charges. Of those who had convictions, 56%, the majority were not for violent or potentially violent crimes. Many lost their permanent U.S. residency as a result.

Many also have chronic conditions, including cancer and heart disease. A shelter administrator in Villahermosa has previously told the Herald that many of the recently arrived Cubans needed help getting care for serious diseases. It’s a challenge they have previously not faced before in their shelter population and that has put a strain on shelter resources.

As part of the report, the watchdog organization interviewed 41 people from Cuba and a dozen others from Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras and El Salvador. Many are older and have been in the United States for decades, some of them in Florida. Because they faced legal limbo in the U.S. but were unable to return to Cuba, they periodically checked in with ICE.

Access to legal counsel

The Cubans and other immigrants told the organization that there were “harsh conditions in detention, including overcrowding, inadequate hygiene and medical attention, exposure to extreme temperatures, and 24-hour lighting.” Some said they had experienced verbal and physical violence while housed in ICE centers.

One man identified as Antonio said that he had witnessed an older man dying after sleeping for days on the floor in an extremely cold room at the Krome Detention Center in west Miami Dade County. The dates and description of the death correspond to the death of Isidro Perez, a 75-year-old Cuban man who had lived nearly six decades in the U.S. before being picked up by ICE.

The Trump administration has denied that conditions in immigration detention facilities are poor, posting on Tuesday on its social media platform that detainees had access to three meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap and toiletries.

As part of its mass deportation policies, the Trump administration has honed in on both recently arrived and long-established Cuban immigrants. President Donald Trump has frozen nearly a million of their applications for green cards, asylum, and more. He also ended a parole program that allowed Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S. for two years.

In March, the government admitted in a federal lawsuit that it had a “standing but unwritten” agreement with Mexico to deport Cubans there. A Homeland Security brief said that “no travel documents are necessary” to send them there. The admission prompted baffled comments from a veteran federal judge.

“What? Can this be true? There’s some unwritten deal between two sovereign nations whereby 6,000 Cuban nationals have already been shipped to Mexico? Is this deal secret?” Judge William Young said in a court order in March.

In the wake of its findings, Human Rights Watch is urging the U.S. and Mexican governments to follow their own laws and international laws regarding immigration and asylum and to carry out third-country deportations transparently.

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