Daniela Fuentes, once a performer in Miami, now lives in hiding in the Central African Republic after a sudden, secretive U.S. deportation.
In Miami, Daniela Fuentes lived the life she had envisioned since adolescence. She styled hair for clients. performed in drag at the nightclub Azúcar. and walked the streets with her blond wig. finally feeling the freedom to exist as a woman. On August 29, that life was dismantled. Without warning, U.S. authorities flew the 32-year-old to the Central African Republic—a country she had never visited. where she knows neither the language nor the people. and where she now fears for her safety every time she steps outside.
Fuentes is currently confined to an apartment complex in the capital. Bangui. designated by the local government to house male deportees. She shares a room with four Cuban men who were also deported from the U.S. In this environment, the identity she fought to claim has become a liability. She wears men’s clothes, keeps her voice low, and masks the breasts she developed through hormone treatment. She only dares to wear her wig in the privacy of her bathroom. “Everything is difficult here because I have to hide who I am,” Fuentes said. “I don’t know this place. the people or the language. and I have no idea what will happen to me.”.
The path to Bangui began when officers encountered Fuentes outside a motel, citing a missed immigration court hearing in Texas. Following a January 2025 executive order that excludes transgender women from female detention centers. she was placed in facilities with men. where officials confiscated her wig and issued her a male uniform. “When I learned that they were going to put me with men, I almost fainted,” she said. While she was being transferred from Florida to Texas by armed officers. the destination remained a secret for the first five hours of the flight. She had expected to be sent to Cuba. a country she fled in 2023 amid an economic crisis and a history of personal harassment that left scars on her head and arm.
Her experience is part of a broader, often opaque, U.S. policy involving “third-country” deportations. While the U.S. has resumed regular charter flights to Havana. Fuentes was instead sent to a nation the State Department advises American travelers to avoid. At least 12 African nations have signed agreements to accept these deportees, a practice the U.S. Supreme Court allowed to continue temporarily last month. Since January 2025. more than 500 people have been sent to African countries under this policy. including at least 12 individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ and were placed in regions that criminalize same-sex conduct. There is no official public tally, but monitors suggest the number of such deportations is likely higher.
The logistical limbo for those sent to Bangui is absolute. The deportees have no identification documents, as U.S. authorities confiscated them, leaving them unable to work or navigate the city safely. While the International Organization for Migration (IOM) provides food and local officials claim the migrants are in “good hands. ” the reality is one of house arrest. A policy officer at the Central African Republic’s Foreign Ministry confirmed they are monitoring the group. though he spoke on condition of anonymity. The U.S. has committed $85 million to the IOM for these operations. yet for the people on the ground. the future is a blank slate. Some have been forced to crowdsource donations just to afford basic groceries.
The sequence of events suggests a consistent pattern: the U.S. government maintains that these deportations are lawful and that receiving countries provide assurances against persecution. Yet. reports indicate that in other nations like Eswatini and Equatorial Guinea. deportees have faced detention in maximum-security prisons or against their will in hotels owned by political families. For Fuentes. who has no lawyer and no clear path forward. the irony is sharpened by the fact that Cuba has already authorized her return via embassy documents. Instead. she waits in a compound. hoping for an asylum opportunity elsewhere. like Canada. while navigating a world where she is a stranger in hiding. “My whole life, my whole identity, was taken away from me,” she said.
Daniela Fuentes deportation Central African Republic LGBTQ rights U.S. immigration Bangui human rights