Yasmany Moreno de Armas had already spent months being moved through federal immigration detention when he was put on another plane in Louisiana. The 32-year-old Cuban had lived in the United States for about a decade, including in Miami with his family, and had been trying to secure legal status through asylum after other forms of immigration relief were denied. He told ABC News that he believed the flight was another transfer inside the United States. About two hours after takeoff, he learned that the government was sending him to Africa.
The destination was the Central African Republic, a country where Moreno de Armas is not a citizen and had no personal ties. He had left Cuba years earlier and built a life in the United States before federal immigration authorities detained him in May.
For Moreno de Armas and the other Latino men sent with him, the flight did not end the harm. The men told ABC News that they arrived without passports or identification documents and were left in legal limbo. Aristides Fernandez Garcia, another Cuban deported to the Central African Republic, said they had no visa or papers and described their status there as illegal. He said the lack of documents meant that even if he had the money to travel somewhere else, he could not do it.
Fernandez Garcia described their living situation in terms that leave little room for institutional abstraction. He told ABC News that they were “prisoners here” and said they were not being allowed to leave or go anywhere. He then said, “I feel kidnapped,” and added that their rights had been violated because they are human beings. Those statements are his direct account of what life has become after the U.S. government removed him to a country where he says he lacks the documents required to move on.
Moreno de Armas has described the experience as a nightmare and said the men face risk every day. He also pointed to the fact that the United States warns its own citizens against traveling to the same country where he was sent. The State Department currently classifies the Central African Republic at Level 4 — Do Not Travel because of unrest, crime, kidnapping, landmines, health risks and terrorism, and says the U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services there.
The Department of Homeland Security nevertheless told ABC News that Moreno de Armas and the other men interviewed had been deported to a “safe country” and said the government was applying the law as written. That defense sits beside a separate U.S. government warning telling Americans not to travel there for any reason. For the men who were sent there, the contradiction is not theoretical: they are living in the country DHS described as safe while another federal agency warns of kidnapping, violent crime, unrest and terrorism.
Their experience is part of a broader system that has expanded rapidly. Human Rights First and Refugees International documented first-time and repeated third-country transfer flights to the Central African Republic during 2026, while ICE Flight Monitor reported a record 16 third-country transfer flights to 13 countries in August alone. The groups say many people subjected to these transfers are sent to countries where they have no meaningful legal or personal connection and can face detention, family separation or onward removal.
What makes their case especially stark is what came afterward. Moreno de Armas and Fernandez Garcia say they were left without the documents they need to travel, unable to freely leave, and dependent on whatever options remain available inside a country they did not choose.
The unresolved accountability now reaches beyond the flight itself. The public record still does not explain why these men were sent specifically to the Central African Republic, what meaningful notice they received before removal, why they arrived without the documents they say they need to leave, or who is responsible for restoring their ability to travel. It also leaves the government to answer how DHS can defend the country as safe for deportees while the State Department maintains its highest possible travel warning for Americans.
Moreno de Armas and Fernandez Garcia are living inside those unanswered questions. One believed he was being transferred within the United States before learning in the air that he was being sent to Africa. The other says he is now a prisoner without the papers he needs to leave and describes the experience in his own words: he feels kidnapped.
Americans Against ICE will continue following Yasmany Moreno de Armas and Aristides Fernandez Garcia for any change in their status, ability to leave the Central African Republic, or other significant development in their case.
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AAI HAS DOCUMENTED THIS THIRD-COUNTRY DEPORTATION SYSTEM BEFORE — READ THE CASES BELOW
That record includes Roberto Mosquera, who was sent to Eswatini; Carlos Tellez Sanchez, who was deported to Liberia; and other protected immigrants routed toward the Central African Republic despite having no meaningful ties to those countries. Yasmany Moreno de Armas and Aristides Fernandez Garcia now add another case to that expanding pattern.
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