The young Cuban pilot who arrived in South Florida (USA) aboard a Russian-made plane with which he fled Cuba had his first appearance in an Immigration court on Monday, but will remain detained until the next hearing.
Rubén Martínez Machado, 29 years old, will return next week to court in Pompano Beach, Florida, to continue with his application for asylum in the United States, which he will present under the argument of having a “credible fear” that if he is returned to Cuba “his life is in danger,” as pointed out by his lawyer, Eduardo Soto.
The Cuban entered the United States ten days ago by air from Cuba aboard a single-engine Antonov An-2 plane, which made a landing at the Training Airport and Dade-Collier Transition, located in the middle of the immense wetland of the Florida Everglades.
The pilot flew from the province of Sancti Spíritus, in the center of Cuba and located more than 185 miles (300 kilometers) east of Havana and, shortly after After landing after an hour’s journey, he was made available to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). , the judge did not set bail for Martínez in view of the fact that the Prosecutor’s Office was not ready to present his case, for which the young man will remain in a detention center in Broward County, north of Miami.
“I think he has a very good case, but I am not the one with the last word,” Soto told EFE last week, after noting that both he and his client are confident of obtaining a positive verdict in the court.
This Monday, Maile Díaz, a close friend of the pilot, who has no relatives in Miami, said told Telemundo that if the young man “sets foot in Cuba he will never see the sun again.”
“He he will always be persecuted by the government, he has already betrayed and stole a very important state team,” added the woman, who added that Martínez’s mother “is desperate.”
During the year tax 2022, that is, between October 1, 2021 and 30 September 2022, a total of 6, 182 migrants Cubans were intercepted in the waters of the Straits of Florida, well above the 838 detained the previous fiscal period, according to statistics from the US Coast Guard.
So far this month, they have been intercepted and 1 132 Cubans in the vicinity of this state, according to the most recent report of this dependency.