ASouth Florida businessman who supported Donald Trumpsays he is now experiencing the personal consequences of the administration's intensified immigration enforcement, after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained and moved to deport his Cuban fiancée.The case has drawn national attention after an emotional television interview and a viral online video showed the man describing what he called the 'pain of regret' following his vote in the 2024 election.
The man, identified inlocal reportingas Miami-Dade small business owner DeMario, said his fiancée — a Cuban national who had lived in the United States for roughly 25 years — was detained during a scheduled compliance appointment with ICE, a routine requirement for some migrants with older deportation orders.
According to his account, she had entered the United States through the Diversity Visa Lottery decades earlier and had continued annual check-ins with immigration authorities without incident. The situation changed after a minor legal encounter stemming from a traffic stop, which brought renewed attention to a deportation order originally issued in 2008.
ICE officers detained her during the appointment and transferred her to a detention facility in Louisiana. DeMario told reporters that she had not appeared before an immigration judge at the time of the interview, raising concerns about access to hearings and legal representation while in federal custody.
The detention followed years in which individuals under orders of supervision were often allowed to remain in the country if they complied with reporting requirements. Immigration attorneys note that enforcement discretion has narrowed significantly under current policy priorities.
Federal enforcement data and government announcements confirm that deportations of Cuban nationals have accelerated.ICEresumed large-scale removal operations under existing immigration authorities, emphasising the removal of individuals with final orders of deportation.
In November 2025 alone, US authorities deported139 Cuban migrantson a single charter flight to Havana, contributing to more than 1,370 removals that year under bilateral migration agreements.
The pace has continued into 2026. ICE confirmed that a February 2026 flight returned 170 Cuban nationals to the island, marking the first removal flight of the year and signalling ongoing cooperation between Washington and Havana despite strained diplomatic relations.
Policy analysts link the increase partly to the termination of humanitarian parole pathways for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans announced by the Department of Homeland Security, which reduced temporary legal protections that previously shielded many migrants from removal proceedings.
For families like DeMario's, those administrative changes transformed long-stable immigration situations into urgent legal crises.
Source: International Business Times UK
