14ymedio, Havana 17 March 2022 — Esteban Rodríguez, the Cuban independent journalist who left the island at the beginning of the year along with his colleague Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, has arrived in the United States.
The reporter and activist posted an image on his Facebook profile accompanied by the text: “Family, in the land of Liberty. Thanks to everyone who made it possible. A thousand blessings.”
On the same page he indicates that he resides in Wayne, Michigan.
Esteban Rodríguez was imprisoned in Cuba for eight months. The journalist was one of the demonstrators on Obispo Street, in Havana, who on April 30, 2021 tried to approach the house of artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and were arrested for this.
At the beginning of January, the Government released him on the condition of his exile and, together with his colleague Valdés Cocho, he began a trip to Nicaragua that was frustrated when, according to their report, they were prevented from entering that country and were stranded at the El Salvador airport.
After a mobilization of activists and diplomats, both managed to get El Salvador to admit them into the country until their immigration situation was resolved. However, the two journalists abandoned the refugee process and chose to leave the country, thereafter acquiring an illegal immigration status.
Subsequently, they continued their journey north and on January 18, they were detained in Mexico City and taken to the Las Agujas immigration station.
Rodríguez remained several days in that center of the Mexican capital “by court order, derived from an amparo process that he filed, but when he desisted and requested refuge before the Mexican Commission of Support to Refugees (COMAR), a humanitarian visa was issued to him to continue the corresponding procedure in this entity.”
Valdés Cocho obtained “an exit document in Mexico City” so that he could complete, in the state of Chiapas, the refugee process that he requested.
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