Upstate hospital pair came to America where they could marry. ICE plans to send them back to Cuba

After many years together across two countries, Alcibiades Lazaro Ramirez Gonzalez and Yannier Vazquez Hidalgo decided suddenly two months ago to tie the knot.

The men called their enthusiastic family members to gather in a Clay courtroom.

In the photos, “Yan” and “Alex” are beaming, surrounded by sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews. Yan held a bouquet of peach roses.

The marriage of two men is not easily accepted in Cuba, a country they fled for America in 2021 and 2022. The two work together at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Yan is a janitor. Alex is a supervisor in the same department. The men bought a house together in North Syracuse.

They both had requested asylum protection in the U.S. and had recently passed an immigration test required to prove there is a credible threat to their lives in Cuba because they are gay, their relatives said.

Last Wednesday, they went together to check in with officers at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Mattydale. They thought it would be their last visit before a judge would give a final blessing to live here.

Instead, officers detained the couple and sent them to a detention center in Batavia.

A co-worker retrieved their empty car. Word spread through the family as fast as a wedding invitation. By Saturday, their colleagues and family members gathered around Gov. Kathy Hochul, asking for help.

Because the men work at a state-owned hospital, their union representatives went straight to the boss.

Yan is represented by the Civil Services Employees Association. Alex is a member of United University Professions.

Hochul visited Syracuse Saturday to campaign for Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens, who is running for mayor. During that event, she met privately with the families of the two men.

She promised to help them find a good lawyer.

Hochul, a Democrat, and President Donald Trump, a Republican, are on opposite sides of immigration enforcement.

“This is a very treacherous time in our society, when individuals who lived here for years and are high-functioning members of our community working at SUNY Upstate are the ones who are defined as the worst of the worst,” Hochul said.

Trump promised before he took office to find and deport undocumented immigrants. People have been arrested in factory raids and targeted traffic stops. A woman who hit a deer wound up in a Louisiana detention center, separated from her husband and children.

Lately, in Central New York, people who meet with ICE officers to update their addresses and workplaces have been detained on the spot.

Before they met with the governor Saturday, relatives drove to Batavia to see the men in person, said Alexeis Ruiz Batista, a cousin of Alex. For two hours, four different family members visited the men and tried to reassure them.

“I told them that everything was going to be OK. There was a lot of people that were trying to help them and were worried about the situation,” he told Syracuse.com through an interpreter. “They can trust in God that everything is going to be OK.”

Still, the federal government has not told the men or the family why they were detained or what will happen next. The men have never been charged with a crime or even a traffic ticket, their relatives said. No one else in their extended family has been detained, they said.

Juan Carlos, who is married to Yan’s sister, said his brother-in-law is an excellent person who showed others the path to live and work in the U.S.

The men suffered bullying and brutality in Cuba, Carlos said.

“Their lives are in danger if they have to go back and deal with that again,” he said.

Yan has a hearing scheduled in Batavia for 8:30 a.m. Nov. 17. The government has not set a hearing for Alex, but the families are hopeful that both men will have their hearings on the same day.

The men are together, their relatives said, in a cell.

Elany Romero Cruz contributed to this report.