by Michael K. Lavers

A Washington Blade reporter from Cuba who was released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody last week says he can now live without fear of persecution.

“I really feel that I am alive now,” Yariel Valdés González told the Blade on Sunday from the Miami suburb of Cutler Bay where he now lives with his aunt, María Valdés and his uncle, Julio Valdés. “It is a wonderful feeling to feel free and to be able to take control of your life and above all knowing that you will not be persecuted again because of your ideas or your work.”

Valdés, 29, entered the U.S. on March 27, 2019, through the Calexico West Port of Entry between California’s Imperial Valley and the Mexican city of Mexicali. He asked for asylum based on the persecution he suffered in Cuba because he is a journalist.

Judge Timothy Cole last September granted Valdés asylum, but the ruling was appealed to the Virginia-based Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review oversees. The Board of Immigration Appeals on Feb. 28 dismissed the challenge.

Valdés had been in ICE custody since he applied for asylum in California. He was held at three ICE detention centers: The privately-run Tallahatchee County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Miss.; Bossier Parish Medium Security Facility in Plain Dealing, La., and the privately-run River Correctional Center in Ferriday, La. Read more via Washington Blade