Is Cuban activist Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho in ICE custody? What we know

In October 2025, a claim (archived) from months earlier recirculated online. According to social media posts, the Cuban-born “Latinos for Trump” leader and activist Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho had been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and was awaiting deportation.

One Facebook user wrote on Oct. 12, “Trump just arrested the head of ‘Latinos for Trump,’ Hector Cocho, the Cuban activist who helped Trump get elected. He’s now in ICE Custody awaiting deportation. I guess he got what he voted for 😨”

The claim also circulated on X (archived), Instagram (archived) and Bluesky (archived). The same claim previously circulated in June 2025. 

Around the time claims recirculated in October, the Spanish-language media outlet ClickCuba reported (archived) that Valdés had received political asylum in the U.S. and been released from ICE custody.

ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System did not list a Hector Luis Valdes-Cocho born in Cuba in detention at the time of this writing. In June 2025, Snopes found a Hector Luis Valdes-Cocho born in Cuba in ICE custody at Otay Mesa Detention Center in California, according to the locator system.

Snopes was unable to view the details of Valdés’ immigration case without his alien registration number (also known as an A-Number), which is not generally publicly available information, at the time of our original reporting. It was unclear whether that information would still be available if ICE had released Valdés by October. Snopes still could not access Valdés’ A-number then. It remained unclear under what conditions ICE might have released Valdés.

Though popular online claims said Valdés was a leader in the Latinos for Trump campaign movement, we found no credible reports linking him to this particular group (archived, archived, archived). Valdés’ Facebook and Instagram accounts were inactive at the time of this writing, so they could not provide additional information about his political activities. Given the above, we leave this claim unrated.

We reached out to ICE for any information it could provide about the status of Valdés’ immigration case and potential release or political asylum. We also reached out to the former co-chairs of Latinos for Trump, Jeanette M. Nuñez and Margarita Paláu-Hernández, to ask if they could confirm or deny Valdés’ involvement with the group. We await replies to our queries.

Mapping Valdés’ road to ICE detention

Valdés was a journalist and anti-government activist in Cuba before he was forced into exile in January 2022. It was unclear when and how he arrived in the U.S. 

In April 2024, Partido del Pueblo, a self-described right-wing political party founded to counter the Communist Party of Cuba, posted (archived) a picture on Instagram of Valdés holding a Trump 2024 banner and said it was taken in Michigan.

It was also unclear at the time of this writing exactly how Valdés ended up in ICE detention. In November 2024, CiberCuba reported that Valdés was arrested by Orange County sheriff’s deputies in Florida. The report referenced a mug shot of Valdés from a Facebook page that reposts mug shots from Orange County. The page had removed that mug shot by October. CiberCuba’s report said the arrest was for failure to appear in a traffic violation case. 

A spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said it carried out the arrest on an out-of-county warrant. We contacted the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office on the Orange County department’s recommendation to ask what the warrant was for.

At the time of his arrest, multiple Cuban journalists and activists accused Valdés of failing to repay loans, according to CiberCuba. It was unclear whether any of the accusations led to criminal charges or, in turn, to ICE detention.

Then, in February 2025, CiberCuba reported that it found Valdés on ICE’s online detainee locator detained in Florida. It was unclear when ICE moved Valdés to California, where the locator said he was detained at the time of this writing.

News of Valdés’ ICE detention came as the Trump administration paused and aimed to terminate a number of humanitarian parole programs, including one for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In May 2025, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to pause the program, and with it the short-term lawful status granted to citizens of the named countries under the program, making them deportable.

It was unclear whether Valdés gained lawful status in the U.S. under the CHNV program and whether he was affected by the Trump administration’s pause. The program grants short-term lawful status to successful applicants, usually around two years, which would have expired by 2025.

Sources