Judge Demands Answers on 'Unwritten' Deal Deporting 6,000 Cubans to Mexico Over The Past Year: 'Can This Be True?'

A federal judge is demanding explanations from the Trump administration after learning that roughly 6,000 Cuban nationals have been deported to Mexico over the past year under what officials described as a "standing" but "unwritten" agreement between the two countries.

In a nine-page order, U.S. District Judge William G. Young questioned both the legality and existence of the arrangement, citing a Department of Homeland Security filing acknowledging the practice.

"What? Can this be true?" Young wrote according to The Miami Herald. "There's some unwritten deal between two sovereign nations whereby 6,000 Cuban nationals have already been shipped to Mexico? Is this deal secret?"

The disclosure came in a case involving a Cuban man detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and facing deportation to Mexico. According to DHS, "no travel documents are necessary" for these transfers, a detail that further alarmed the court. Young criticized what he described as a lack of process, writing that the policy appeared to operate with "no process at all beyond, 'It is what we say it is.'"

The judge ordered the government to produce evidence of the agreement, even if it is not formally written. "If such an unwritten agreement exists, of course there will be written evidence of it," he wrote, requesting internal communications and directives to substantiate the claim.

The deportations are part of a broader effort by the administration to expand removals to third countries when migrants' home nations refuse to accept them. Cuba has long been considered a "recalcitrant" country by U.S. authorities, frequently declining to take back nationals with certain criminal convictions. That has left many Cuban migrants in legal limbo for years.

The arrangement appears to draw in part on a Biden-era framework under which Mexico agreed to accept migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela under specific conditions tied to legal entry programs.

However, the current policy diverges from that framework, according to court filings, raising questions about its legal basis. Homeland Security attorneys argued that deportations to Cuba were "impractical, inadvisable, or impossible," justifying transfers to Mexico.

Reports from last year indicated that Cuban deportees sent to Mexico often faced precarious conditions, including homelessness and limited access to basic services. Deportees described being bused to the border and released without documentation, often with no clear destination.

Some even said Mexican authorities left them near the Guatemala border and told them to "head south." Others reported spending weeks searching for food, shelter and work while sleeping on the streets.