Two Cuban men who entered Florida without inspection in 1980 and ignored old exclusion orders now sit in a Miami jail on cocaine trafficking and stolen-firearm charges, with ICE detainers attached.
Miami police say Magdaleno Medina, 73, sold an undercover officer $60 worth of cocaine on Aug. 19. On Sept. 9, officers executed a narcotics search warrant at a trailer and found Cesar Valdes, 89, along with dozens of clear bags of cocaine and marijuana, ammunition, stolen firearms, and more than $4,800 in cash.
Both men are behind bars in a Miami jail with ICE detainers. Medina faces eight felony charges, including possession of cocaine with intent to sell, cocaine trafficking, and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon. Valdes faces five similar drug- and firearm-related felony charges. Both pleaded not guilty.
Fox News reported the arrests and the men’s long illegal presence in the United States after police and immigration records came into view.
An ICE spokesman said both men entered the country without inspection near Key West, Florida, on different days in May 1980. They have remained illegally for more than 45 years, roughly 46 years by the current count.
Immigration judges had already ordered them out. An immigration judge issued Medina a final order of exclusion on July 24, 1996. Valdes received his final order of exclusion on March 10, 1993. Those “final orders of exclusion” were the decisions immigration judges used before April 1997, when the system shifted to removal proceedings, according to the U.S. Department of Justice as described in the reporting.
The orders did not end their stay. Decades later, local police were the ones who brought the cases back into the open through a street-level drug investigation.
ICE said Medina has four prior felony convictions for cocaine smuggling, drug possession, and drug trafficking. Valdes had earlier charges in Miami-Dade County that included cocaine possession and a probation violation in the 1980s and 1990s.
Court records described in the coverage say Medina sold the undercover Miami officer the $60 of cocaine on Aug. 19. The Sept. 9 warrant search at the trailer then produced the larger haul of drugs, ammunition, stolen guns, and cash, with both men tied to the scene and the charges that followed.
An attorney representing both men declined to comment on their cases.
With the state felony cases underway, ICE lodged detainers so the men remain in custody for immigration action as well. The agency framed the arrests as routine accountability for criminal illegal immigrants, not an exception based on age.
An ICE spokesman told Fox News Digital:
"Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, if you break the law, you will face the consequences,"
The same spokesman added:
"Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S. We will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you."
The sequence is straightforward. Two men entered without inspection near Key West in 1980. Judges later ordered them excluded. They stayed. Local police then documented a cocaine sale, a trailer full of drugs and stolen firearms, and cash. State charges and ICE detainers followed. Age did not erase the record, the warrants, or the detainers.
When exclusion orders sit unenforced for decades and street-level drug work finally forces the issue, taxpayers see the cost of delayed consequences, and the value of actually carrying them out.
