Men from Cuba and other countries describe being deported by the U.S. to a dangerous African nation: “We cannot leave”

Last year, Cuban immigrant Yasmany Moreno de Armas was working and living in Florida. He’s now in the Central African Republic, after the Trump administration sent him and dozens of deportees to the deeply impoverished and conflict-ridden nation.

The 31-year-old said he only learned the U.S. government was deporting him to Africa after he arrived there in late July, alongside detainees from countries across the globe, including Ecuador, Honduras, Serbia, Russia and Vietnam.

“We cannot leave, we don’t have documents and we’re suffering and missing our families, in a continent we don’t know,” Moreno de Armas told CBS News in Spanish over a video call from inside a building in Bangui, the country’s capital, where the deportees have been living.

Asked if he had ever heard of the Central African Republic prior to his deportation, he said “never.”

The Central African Republic is one of the poorest countries in the world. Armed conflict, political instability and Russian mercenaries have also made it one of the most dangerous. The State Department warns Americans through a Level 4 travel advisory not to visit the country, citing the widespread insecurity there.

The landlocked nation is one of more than 30 countries the U.S. government has convinced to accept third-country deportees arrested as part of President Trump’s large-scale crackdown on illegal immigration. The list includes a growing number of African countries, many of which are plagued by armed conflict, repressive governments and human rights abuses. 

Eritrea native Zena Gebrgzabher, 39, is also stranded in the Central African Republic after being ejected from the U.S. 

“I miss my family,” Gebrgzabher told CBS News over a video call.

“My son. He asked like every day to my wife, ‘(where) is my daddy?'” he added.

Gebrgzabher’s wife and their 5-year-old son, both of whom are American citizens, live in Maryland, where he said he worked as a truck driver. Like Moreno de Armas, Gebrgzabher said he was not given any notice of his deportation to the Central African Republic or allowed to challenge it. 

Yrgalem Gehrehiwet called her husband’s deportation unfair and inhumane. She said their son, Nathan, has been particularly affected by his father’s absence, though she has refrained from telling him about Gebrgzabher’s predicament.

“More than us because he loves his dad,” she told CBS News. 

CBS News could not find any criminal record for Moreno de Armas or Gebrgzabher, beyond traffic and immigration violations, like entering the U.S. illegally. But both men’s cases do match the description of many of those targeted by the Trump administration for deportation to far-flung “third countries.”

For the most part, the Trump administration has sought to use third-country deportation agreements to deport immigrants whose home countries, like Cuba, reject or limit U.S. deportations or who have won legal protections in U.S. immigration courts that shield them from being returned to their homelands due to concerns about their safety. 

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to questions about the men sent to the Central African Republic and the nature of its agreement with that country, including what it is getting for accepting deportees from the U.S.

Moreno de Armas said he could be in danger in Cuba, since he was once imprisoned there after his first attempt to flee the communist-ruled island. Cuban government documents show he was imprisoned for “illegal exit from the national territory.” His second attempt proved successful.

U.S. government documents show he arrived in Florida by boat in September 2016 and was allowed into the U.S. under the “parole” legal authority that Cuban arrivals benefited from under the now-defunct “Wet Foot, Dry Foot” policy. He applied for a green card under the Cold War-era Cuban Adjustment Act, but was denied on the grounds that he filed the application after his parole expired.

Lacking legal status, Moreno de Armas was arrested by immigration officials in May 2025 and spent roughly a year in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody before his deportation to Africa this summer.

Gebrgzabher won his legal case in immigration court in 2017, when an immigration judge found him eligible for protection under the Convention Against Torture and barred his deportation to Eritrea. 

Court documents show Gebrgzabher did not get asylum, a more permanent legal status, because he served as a checkpoint guard in the Eritrean military. Even though judges noted he was forcibly conscripted as an 18-year-old, they found him to be ineligible for asylum because of a rule that disqualifies those who may have assisted in the persecution of others. While he said he did not harm or arrest anyone passing through the checkpoint, the judges said he impeded the escape of political prisoners.

The documents indicate Gebrgzabher was imprisoned by the Eritrean military after overstaying his leave, and subsequently fled the country. He then traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border, where he requested asylum at a port of entry.

After being granted protection under the Convention Against Torture, Gebrgzabher said he started a family and checked in with ICE regularly, without incident, until he was arrested during an appointment last year. While his protection barred his deportation to Eritrea, it did not legally prevent officials from sending him to a third country like the Central African Republic.

Both men CBS News spoke to described being effectively stateless, stuck in a foreign nation where they don’t speak the language and lack any ties or relatives.

“If you’re going to be deported, it should be to your home country, not to another country where you don’t know the culture,” Moreno de Armas said.