What to know about Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, Cuban activist who might be deported
In June 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that the Cuban-born "Latinos for Trump" leader and activist Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho was arrested by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement and was awaiting deportation.
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A Reddit post included an image that read: "'Latinos for Trump' leader Hector Luis Valdes Cocho, a Cuban activist who rallied others to vote for Trump, was picked up by ICE and is in a detention center waiting to be deported."
The claim also appeared on Facebook (archived), X (archived), Threads (archived), Instagram (archived), Bluesky (archived) and TikTok (archived) dating to February (archived) 2025 (archived). Snopes readers messaged us about claims surrounding the arrest of Valdés starting in February.
According to the ICE's Online Detainee Locator System, a Hector Luis Valdes-Cocho born in Cuba was in ICE custody at Otay Mesa Detention Center in California at the time of this writing.
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. Therefore, it was not possible to confirm whether Valdés was facing deportation at the time of this writing. ICE detains people for reasons including "to ensure their presence for immigration proceedings, to facilitate removals to their countries of citizenship, and to protect public safety."
Furthermore, 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, 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.
We reached out to ICE for any information it could provide about the status of Valdés' immigration case and potential deportation. 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.
ICE's locator system did not include a picture of the Hector Luis Valdes-Cocho the agency detained. CiberCuba, an online newspaper founded by Cuban expatriates, said that the person detained by ICE in California (and previously Florida) was the same person who featured in the claims in this article.
When asked about the authenticity of a mug shot (archived) showing Valdés during an arrest in November 2024, a spokesperson for Orange County, Florida, jail told Snopes they were prohibited under federal law from disclosing or otherwise permitting to be made public "the name or other information relating to ICE inmates," further indicating that the Valdés arrested in November 2024 was the same person detained by ICE at the time of this writing.
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. 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.
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"Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho Arrested in the U.S. amid Scandal over Scams." CiberCuba, 22 Nov. 2024, https://en.cibercuba.com/noticias/2024-11-22-u1-e135253-s27061-nid292492-detienen-hector-luis-valdes-cocho-eeuu-medio.
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