Carlos

Carlos arrived on U.S. shores by raft in 1992 leaving his two young sons behind with their mother. Once employed in the United States, he regularly sent money to Cuba for their support. From 1994 until 2003 he visited his sons every year.

In the wake of 9/11 Carlos volunteered for the National Guard. He was deployed to Iraq where he served in the bloody battle for Fallujah and was awarded a bronze star. In June 2004, when he arrived at the Miami airport to make his annual trip to Cuba, he was told that new restrictions were about to go into effect. He was denied permission to go and had to return to military service in Iraq without seeing his sons. He doesn’t understand the country for which he has risked his life could forbid him from seeing his children. “If I had lost my life in Iraq without being able to see my boys again, it wouldn’t have been because of the war, it would have been because my Commander in Chief wouldn’t let me see them when I was able to!”