HOMESTEAD, Fla. — It’s been 14 months since a Cuban man from Miami was deported, but not to Cuba.
Instead, 59-year-old Roberto Mosquera is in Africa and in jail, even though his attorney says he’s not been charged with a crime there.
Mosquera lived most of his life in South Florida where he worked as a plumber and has three daughters.
He showed Local 10 News’ Christian De La Rosa the conditions where he’s currently being held.
“We don’t got too many windows,” said Mosquera. “The Wi-Fi is not very good.”
Mosquera, who arrived in the U.S. as a child from Cuba, has a lengthy criminal record, including attempted murder, for which he served time behind bars.
“I have my faults in the United States, I paid for what I did,” he said.
Once he completed his sentence and got out, he got a job and had a family, and like so many other Cubans with a deportation order, he’d check in every year.
But in June 2025, after President Trump took office, ICE detained him two days before Father’s Day.
“I couldn’t even say goodbye when I left, it’s very hard,” he said.
Mosquera was deported from Miami to the small country of Eswatini in Southern Africa.
The Trump Administration claims Cuba would not take him.
He is one of a growing number of deportees sent to places they’re not from when their countries of origin turn them away.
The deportation agreement in Eswatini alone has reportedly cost U.S. taxpayers millions.
“I just want some answers man,” said Mosquera.
In a statement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told Local 10 News:
“We are lawfully implementing President Trump’s agenda to deport illegal aliens by any means necessary within the law. When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.”
Mosquera’s attorney told local 10 News the father of three remains jailed there indefinitely for a crime he did not commit.
The Homestead plumber says the only thing keeping him hopeful are his daughters, especially his youngest, 10-year-old Faith.
“Because it’s what I always have here, faith that something is going to change,” he said.
Mosquera said he was able to do the interview with Local 10 News thanks to a phone he was given after going on a hunger strike for 30 days.
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