Senior Cuban Official is in Arizona After Requesting Asylum in the U.S.

Cuba's Deputy Labor Minister is reportedly in Arizona and has applied for asylum in the United States through the CBP One application. Juan Carlos Santana Novoa is currently in Nogales, Arizona, and released in the country while he waits for an immigration appointment, according to Venezuelan outlet Tal Cual Digital.

The outlet added that at least four other officials from Cuba's Communist Party have also applied for asylum in the country.

"We had no idea who that man was until we made it to the border and he was called by his name. There were eight Cubans in the group. He was in Tamaulipas and he asked to join us to get the CBP One appointment," a Cuban who encountered Santana Novoa close to the border told the outlet. It added that the official has an appointment for August 21, 2026.

"We were joking around and saying he looked like a Cuban official, but we didn't know who he really was. In fact, he told us he missed a CBP One appointment because he was in Cuba and was highly mysterious about his family and his past," the person added.

Cuban migrants keep a close eye on officials who travel to the U.S. or seek to do so. The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba recently compiled a database including over 1,000 people who, it says, were part of the government and engaged in surveillance, harassment, bullying and the imprisonment of dissidents and peaceful demonstrators, and now want to go to the U.S.

Rolando Cartaya, a researcher for the organization, said 115 of those individuals are already living in the country. They include former high-ranking officials in the Communist Party, Interior Ministry officials, police officers, government attorneys and judges.

"These people who repressed us, who beat us, are living and enjoying freedom in this great country," said Elixir Arando, a member of the organization, in a press conference covered by the Miami Herald.

Attendants added that while former regime members have been moving to the U.S. for years, those included in the list have not publicly repudiated it and could pose a "national security" threat.

Many have been entering the country through the CHNV humanitarian program that allows Cubans, along with Venezuelans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, to apply for asylum in the country.

More recently, Florida Republicans sent a letter to the Biden administration questioning how such officials were authorized to enter the country. The letter focuses one former official in particular and was addressed to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It was signed by Florida Republican Rresentatives Mario Díaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez and Maríia Elvira Salazar, as well as Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.

"Given this prohibition in U.S. law, it would seem likely to us that a high-level, longtime Cuban Communist Party member and agent of that brutal dictatorship would be inadmissible for U.S. entry," the letter adds, in reference to Manuel Menendez Castellanos, who according to Cuban outlets was a secretary in the party and close to Fidel Castro.

In July, Florida Republicans also introduced legislation aimed at banning states considered to be sponsors of terrorism from accessing TSA areas, following generalized uproar in the state due to a visit from Cuban officials to Miami International Airport.