HAVANA, May 8, (AP): Ten times a day for the past two weeks, Heidy Sánchez has made the same two-block trek from her parents’ home in Havana looking for an internet signal to video call her family and sing her daughter to sleep. And every single time she has ended up crying. Cuban-born Sánchez, 44, was detained in Florida in April during a routine check-in appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, office.

Two days later, she was deported to Cuba. A breastfeeding mother to a 1-year-old and wife of a US citizen, Sánchez is pleading with US President Donald Trump to help her go back and reunite with her family. "To president (Trump) who has a family, I would like him to put his hand on his heart and please help us reunite our family," she told The Associated Press. "My baby is little, she needs me.”

Sánchez's story has raised questions among lawyers and activists about the Trump’s administration crackdown against illegal immigration, including who is being deported, the legal basis for people's removal and if the expulsions have followed the proper procedures. ICE didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has made it a top priority to deport about 1.4 million people who have been ordered by a judge to leave the country, arguing that they have exhausted all avenues to a legal challenge regardless of individual circumstances. Sánchez broke out in tears several times while looking at family photos of her baby and husband.

"I am physically and mentally destroyed," she said. "My world has collapsed and my life is over.” Sánchez arrived at the southern border of the United States in 2019, among hundreds of thousands of Cuban immigrants. She appeared before a judge once without problems but was late for her second appointment. By the time Sánchez finally appeared before the judge, he had signed a deportation order for non-compliance.

Despite this, she was allowed to stay, although she spent nine months in an immigration detention center. After her release, Sánchez got her life back on track. She went to school and started working as a nursing assistant. In 2021, she married Carlos Yuniel Valle, an American citizen and entrepreneur from Tampa, and after two rounds of in vitro fertilization, their daughter Kailyn was born in November 2023. "We were very happy,” she said.