Fidel Forten García, 66, spent more than 40 years in Phoenix working as a mechanic after arriving during the 1980 Mariel boatlift, and his two children were born there. He was arrested in June 2025 at a Phoenix intersection after local deputies accused him of carrying a baggie with cocaine residue; the case was dismissed, but ICE agents took him from Maricopa County Jail and held him 90 days at the Florence Correctional Complex without a court hearing. Shackled at his hands and feet, he was bused with other migrants to the border at Nogales and then transported about 1,800 miles south to a shelter in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, rather than to Cuba. He now relies on money sent by his sons to rent a room and buy medication, and hopes to regularize his status in Mexico so he can move closer to the U.S. border.