U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday deported Melody González Pedraza, a Cuban communist judge who entered the U.S. through the Biden administration’s “humanitarian parole” program, Martí Noticias reported.
González Pedraza reportedly traveled from Havana to Tampa, Florida, in late May 2024 after the administration of former President Joe Biden provided her with a U.S. flight authorization as part of the now-extinct “Humanitarian Parole” program. The initiative, launched by former President Joe Biden in January 2023, allowed up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to legally stay and work in the United States for a period of “up to two years.”
Airport authorities in Tampa reportedly refused to grant her entry due to her extensive past as a communist regime official. In response, González Pedraza requested U.S. political asylum. Martí Noticias detailed that González Pedraza lost her U.S. asylum case on May 21, 2025, and chose not to appeal the ruling issued by an immigration judge in Pompano Beach, Florida. Unnamed sources told the outlet that complaints presented by Cuban exiles against González Pedraza were key to the prosecution and subsequent deportation of the communist judge.
The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC), a non-government organization, included González Pedraza on its list of known Castro regime representatives. The communist judge is known for having issued excessive prison sentences to peaceful Cuban protesters and dissidents.
Days before traveling to Florida, she reportedly sentenced a group of four young Cuban men — all below the age of 30 — to four years in prison on dubious “assault” charges against local state security officials in the municipality of Encrucijada, Villa Clara. Families of the four men denounced at the time that their relatives were unjustly convicted in a sham trial in which the Castro regime did not present neither evidence nor witnesses that could corroborate the accusations.
Martí Noticias reportedly spoke with Marisol Rodríguez Milián, mother of Eddy Daniel Rodríguez Milián, one of the four unjustly sentenced young men. She thanked U.S. authorities for the “justice” in deporting the judge and stressed that González Pedraza did not deserve to live in the United States “after all the damage she did in Cuba.”
Rodríguez Milián reiterated to Martí Noticias that no evidence against the four men was presented during the sham trial, adding, “she tried to fabricate it, but couldn’t find any.”
“Partial justice was served. In reality, she should have been tried in Cuba under a new democratic government for systematic human rights abuses. I told her that to her face during the trial,” Samuel Rodríguez Ferrer, a key witness for the prosecution in the case against the judge, reportedly told Martí Noticias.
In June 2024, the communist judge claimed to the Madrid-based outlet Diario de Cuba that Cuban state security allegedly “coerced” her to issue the excessive sentences against the four men and denied having issued sentences against Cubans who participated in the July 2021 nationwide peaceful anti-communist protests.
Despite the judge’s claims, Cuban national Uziel García told Martí Noticias in 2024 that González Pedraza sentenced him to two years in prison on “contempt” charges for having participated in one of the peaceful protests.
“She has done a lot of damage to the municipality of Encrucijada, in Villa Clara. I am one of her victims. I have in my hands the letter of release after having been imprisoned for going out on July 11 to demonstrate peacefully. She sentenced me to two years in prison,” García told Martí Noticias at the time.
“When I asked her why she was sentencing me to two years in prison when the crime of contempt was punishable by a lesser sentence, she replied that she did what she wanted because she was the judge,” he added.
González Pedraza arrived in the U.S. in 2024 alongside her husband William Hernández Carrazana and brother Ruber González Pedraza. Martí Noticias explained on Thursday that Hernández Carrazana was deported from the United States this year and ICE detained Ruber González Pedraza in Florida.
According to Cubanet, Ruber González Pedraza was under ICE custody at the Krome immigration detention center in Florida and chose to self-deport. The outlet detailed that he used to manage an online blog dedicated to spreading Castro regime propaganda in favor of the “Cuban Five,” a group of communist spies who infiltrated Cuban exile charity organizations and whose actions are directly responsible for the Castro regime’s killing of four American citizens in 1996 while they conducted humanitarian operations in international waters to rescue Cuban refugees.
Before traveling to the United States, Cubanet further detailed, Ruber González Pedraza deleted all of his social media presence while in the process of obtaining “humanitarian parole” status.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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