The two sisters arrived as rafters in 2022 and are trying to obtain political asylum.
14ymedio, Havana, 7 June 2025 — Sisters Mariana de la Caridad Fernández León and Yaneris Redondo León, exiled in the United States after being sentenced to prison for participating in the 11 July 2021, protests in Havana, could be deported to Cuba if their request for political asylum is rejected. “Today we are afraid that we will be denied that protection,” Fernández denounced on social media, asserting that “returning could be equivalent—without exaggerating—to being sent directly to our deaths.”
The young woman’s post provides few details about the legal process she faces in the United States after arriving in the country illegally with her sister as rafters and requesting political asylum. However, it suggests that her case is one of many that have surfaced with Donald Trump’s new policies, which in recent months have ended several of the avenues opened by the previous administration for migrants to request international protection.
“We ask the United States government to act with justice, humanity, and historical memory. We are politically persecuted. We ask for protection, not privileges,” Fernández emphasizes, asserting that both she and her sister meet “each and every one of the legal and humanitarian requirements to obtain refugee status.” She adds that it would be “deeply unfair to return us to a country where we were already imprisoned for thinking differently and making our political stance clear.”
Fernández and Redondo, who were then 18 and 30 years old, participated in the mass protests that took place in the Mantilla neighborhood.
Their request has been supported by organizations such as Justice 11J, which stated: “What appears to be a decision not to provide protection by the United States authorities contradicts the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the return of a person to a country where they are at risk of being tortured, persecuted, or subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, even if their asylum application has been denied.”
Fernández and Redondo, then aged 18 and 30, participated in the mass protests that took place in the Mantilla neighborhood of the capital in July 2021. During the demonstration, they were pepper-sprayed, beaten, and arrested. “My sister and I were locked up for 15 days without a court order. During our detention, we suffered psychological abuse, death threats, and medical neglect,” she says.
Thanks to the “superhuman efforts” of their family, both were released from prison after posting bail of 1,000 pesos each. For more than a year, while awaiting trial, they had to report regularly to the police, who forced them to “sign documents under threat of returning to prison” if they engaged in any act of dissent.
In July 2022, they were finally brought to trial for contempt of court, assault, and public disorder, crimes that, according to Fernandez, were “fabricated” by State Security. Both were found guilty. Redondo was sentenced to seven years in prison and Fernández to five, which was later reduced to years of house arrest.
They were notified that they had 72 hours to voluntarily surrender to the authorities and process their return to prison.
They were notified that they had 72 hours to voluntarily surrender to authorities and process their return to prison. “Faced with the imminent repression and the well-founded fear of what awaited us, we made the most difficult decision of our lives: to flee our country. On November 13, 2022, after a journey of more than 16 hours by sea, we arrived at an uninhabitable island, exhausted and without a clear direction, but with our hope intact. We managed to survive that dangerous journey and finally reach US territory, where we requested political asylum,” she added.
After entering the United States, Fernández even had to be hospitalized “due to the extreme physical exhaustion during the flight.” Now, however, she fears that all her sacrifice will be in vain. “We ask the United States government, the immigration judges, society, and all Cuban exiles to listen to us. Our cause is not individual. It is the cause of a people who continue to demand freedom.”
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