Biography
Manuel Cuevas Diaz was a Spanish Republican sailor who fought Franco, survived internment in French North Africa, and later served with the Free French navy. Immigration authorities arrested him in September 1952 and held him without bail on Ellis Island while seeking to deport him to Franco’s Spain. A court blocked that removal, and in February 1954 he was allowed to leave for Guatemala. The exact days of arrest and departure remain unresolved.
