American Dream Lost, a Deportee Rebuilds in Cuba

In a Miami courtroom in January, Liexer De La Cruz was given seconds to decide where the rest of his life would play out. The Cuban migrant, who had spent five years working his way into a new life in the US, was told to choose: return to Cuba voluntarily or live under the constant threat of deportation. The AP tracks how a man who crossed nearly a dozen countries and the Darien Gap now finds himself back in the rural town outside Havana he once left behind.

De La Cruz and his wife had hoped to use the Cuban Adjustment Act to get green cards; instead, the I-220A form they received left them in limbo, part of a group of more than 500,000 Cubans whose status is now uncertain. His sister and niece, who entered the US the same way, got green cards. Back in his hometown of Las Minas, De La Cruz is driving a solar-powered tricycle taxi amid blackouts, fuel shortages, and soaring food prices, trying to feed his family and build a modest life he'd prefer not to abandon—if Cuba itself could change. "We are going through a bad time," he says of his native land. "In the end, it's the people who are hit the hardest." More at the AP.