Ramon Saul Sanchez leads the Democracy Movement, an important Miami-based group that’s critical of the Castro regime. Sanchez has lived in Miami as a Cuban exile for over 40 years. Last week, he suddenly got a letter from U.S. immigration authorities telling him to leave the country “as soon as possible” or face certain deportation.

Sanchez first arrived in the United States, with his younger brother, in 1967, when he was twelve years old. Immigration officials gave both Sanchez brothers “parole” documents enabling them to stay in the United States as refugees, apparently indefinitely. Now, suddenly, immigration officials have informed him that his 2002 application for U.S. residency has been denied and that he is in the U.S. illegally — despite not having been accused of any crime.

“This is a new low for this administration. The whole thing screams of political placating,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told Fox News Latino. “The Obama White House is the source of the immigration decision, and it seems like manipulation by the Castro government.”

Sanchez told El Nuevo Herald this week that he believes he will win the right to stay by filing an appeal, but that he is prepared to leave his adopted land and return to Cuba.