Stranded in Mexico: Persecuted by Cuba, abandoned by America

Two years after fleeing Cuba, Erika Meléndez,* Roberto Ortiz and their daughter, Yolanda, still live in hiding in Matamoros, Mexico—across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Back in Cuba, they endured persecution for crimes they did not commit, so they fled their homeland as potential “enemies of the state.”

The family arrived in Matamoros in mid-July 2019 and underwent the extinct practice of metering, which put quotas on how many refugees could apply for asylum in the United States. Late that year, their case was summoned under the Migrant Protection Protocols—better known as MPP or “Remain in Mexico”—a policy that ghettoed 60,000 asylum seekers in camps and shelters across Northern Mexico.

In February 2020, the U.S. government denied their case because they failed to appear at the port of entry on the date of their hearing. 

"We did not appear in immigration court because we were scared and confused," Meléndez said. "We were advised not to attend, and we were afraid something would happen to us on the way to the port of entry."

At the time, a turf war between the Cartel del Golfo, or Gulf Cartel, and the Cartel del Noreste, or Northeast Cartel, raged across the region. Authorities discovered 19 unidentified bodies near the U.S.-Mexico border, migrants were being sexually abused and many, especially Cubans, were kidnapped. "How could we show up to court?" Meléndez asked. 

Stories like this family’s are common in Northern Mexico, where thousands of MPP-bound migrants remain. According to estimates from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, almost half of asylum seekers registered in MPP were removed from the system in absentia.

Today, the Ortizes live in an apartment in a Matamoros alley, hiding from cartels to avoid being kidnapped. For many migrant families like them, the road to a safe life has been fraught with trauma.

“We suffered persecution in Cuba. Roberto was accused of cooperating with a group that opposes the Cuban government,” Meléndez said. “Two Cuban police showed up to our house. They hit Roberto and took our computer, searching for proof. They began searching our house and detained my husband for four hours. Roberto was then was released, because they couldn't find any evidence.”

Meléndez remembers the authorities’ warning: "Your husband will pay for what he's doing, because you are conspiring against our country."

After Ortiz got out of jail, their neighbors became informants, supervising all their movements, calling them "worms,” he reported.

“Undercover officers watched us and patrolled our house,” he said. “The government denied me a patent to work, so I had to earn money clandestinely, until we couldn't deal with the pressure anymore and fled. I was a suspect of the crime of enemy propaganda for conspiring against the country.”

Now, Pastor Eleuterio González and his church, Iglesia Valle de Beraca, are sheltering and protecting the family in Matamoros. "With $120, you can feed a family like this and help them with the rent for a month," González said. 

The U.S. government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are allowing asylum seekers with pending MPP cases to enter the United States and to continue their cases inside the country. But the government has not said if it will allow migrants like the Ortizes to enter.

“As the U.S. leaves MPP behind, it has a moral and international law responsibility to protect the persecuted and do right by them,” said Elket Rodriguez, Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant and refugee advocacy and missions specialist. “Cases like these should be reviewed, because these families were set up for failure by design. There was no due process.”

If you would like to contribute to Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief ministry, which supports the work of Pastor Eleuterio González (including purchasing food for families like the Ortiz’s) and other pastors all along the U.S.-Mexico border, click here.

*Names have been changed to protect this family.