The defense will submit its briefs for the conclusion of the summary on July 11.
14ymedio, Miami, June 24, 2025 — Cuban scientist Oscar Casanella, a member of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), had his political asylum hearing in Miami on Tuesday, three years after arriving as an exile in the United States. After the hearing, which lasted almost seven hours from 8:30 in the morning, the activist’s lawyers, Kenia García and Deliane Quiles, of the law firm García & Qayum Law Group, told the press gathered in front of the immigration court that there was still no verdict.
On July 11, the defense will hand in its closing briefs and then, within about two weeks, the judge in charge of the case will communicate her decision in writing, which will be published in the immigration system.
The magistrate “wants to evaluate all the evidence that was submitted in this case”
“The judge has definitely been very generous with her time and the prosecutor with his time, and they have heard all the arguments and all the testimony that Oscar wanted to give,” said García, who also explained that the magistrate “wants to evaluate all the evidence that was submitted in this case.”
Her view was somewhat more optimistic than that expressed by Casanella’s family, who, according to CubaNet, which was covering the case live, had complained that the questions were “a bit tough” for him to “answer yes or no,” without giving him a chance to explain himself at length. “What I told Oscar, who is a little dejected, is that it is not easy to say “yes,” especially in this administration, and it has to be well justified. This in my opinion is not bad news,” explained Kenia García in a first statement published on networks. She thought the process “was smooth” and the hearing “relaxed.”
If he is denied asylum, Casanella would have 30 days to appeal to the Virginia Court of Appeals.
In his statements to the media after the hearing, the activist said that he felt “well accompanied and advised by his lawyers” -who are providing him with services free of charge, as the opponent himself has said- but that “I would have liked everything to go faster and was hoping for an answer today.” The case, he added, “is open,” and no “particular details” can be provided.
If he is denied asylum, Casanella would have 30 days to appeal
Similarly, he referred to the assassination of the Nicaraguan opponent Roberto Samcam by hitmen in Costa Rica as an example to the question of a journalist about the closing argument before the judge, in which he said that he felt safe in the US but not in another country, because the Cuban regime had “tentacles” everywhere, and his life “was in danger.”
Casanella, who entered the US on foot in 2022, received an I-220A form, which, as with other Cubans in the same situation, does not guarantee either asylum in a court or the granting of residence under the Cuban Adjustment Law. According to the same activist in an interview with CubaNet on Monday, immigration authorities did not allow him to conduct a credible-fear interview when crossing the border into El Paso, Texas.
His concern at this Tuesday’s hearing was that the court would dismiss his case and order his expulsion. “To deport myself to Cuba would mean that I would end up in prison, where anything could happen to me. It would also mean that my wife and eldest son would also be deported and left totally vulnerable to the harassment of the Cuban political police.”
Cuban State Security, claims Casanella, has been harassing him since 2013, for his proximity to dissident artists such as the group Porno para Ricardo and Tania Bruguera. In 2016, he was expelled from the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology (INOR), where he worked, allegedly for “ethical misconduct”, denied by the activist.
State Security, claims Casanella, has been harassing him since 2013
But the attacks escalated, he said, starting with his participation in the San Isidro Movement in November 2020, when 15 MSI members locked themselves inside their headquarters on Calle Damas 955 and went on a hunger strike to protest the arbitrary detention of rapper Denis Solís.
They were forcibly evicted by officers dressed as health personnel more than a week later, on 26 November — Oscar Casanella had already left two days before — which provoked the solidarity of more than 300 artists who gathered the next day in front of the Ministry of Culture to ask for a dialogue with the authorities. This was the origin of the 27N group.
In 2022, says Casanella, he was forced to leave Cuba. Before that, he told CubaNet, for the whole of 2021 — the year of the historic demonstrations of 11 July — he was almost “under house arrest”: surrounded by State Security. The state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa also denied them telephone and mobile data service, “so I was kind of dead in life.”
By then, the opponent also reported, the regime had a file on him “for sedition,” with which he was threatened if he did not leave: “We are going to let you out of the house for a month so that you can do your paperwork and leave the country. If you’re still in Cuba a month from now, you go to prison.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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