In 2021, tired of what she said was years of persecution in Latin American countries after being forced out of her home country of Cuba, Maria Luisa Arango Presibal and her husband Nilo Gibert Arencibia decided to come to Florida. They passed through Central America and Mexico, then crossed the border near Del Rio, where they surrendered to Border Patrol agents and requested asylum. They were released and made their way to Miami.
Arango said she was forced to flee Cuba because she marched with las Damas de Blanco, a protest group started by the loved ones of dissidents who have been detained or disappeared by that country’s authoritarian government. The organization is widely known even beyond the island nation; in 2020, a group of U.S. senators, including the Cuban Americans Ted Cruz and current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, introduced a resolution honoring the group and its opposition to Cuba’s communist government.
