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Degnis Bofill, a Latin Grammy-winning percussionist and composer widely acknowledged among the most versatile and talented Cuban musicians of his generation, sits in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention after ICE grabbed him at Miami International Airport on Aug. 19.
Bofill, a Miami resident, was returning from New York, where he had attended the Latin Alternative Music Conference and performed at the Pocket Jazz Club in Midtown Manhattan.
His wife, Mara Delgago, told New Times her husband has an open asylum case pending.
“It seems they saw that, either through the airline sharing it with ICE or some other way,” Delgado said. “They let him call me very briefly. I told him not to sign anything.”
She set up a GoFundMe campaign to pay for legal fees. Within two days, more than 500 people donated more than $45,000.
“I’m very stressed and sad, but I have a lot of support — I have friends, Degnis’ family,” Delgado said. “I know Degnis knows a lot of people, everywhere, but [the outpouring of support] was really sudden and incredible. He’s my husband and I love him, but he truly is very loved by many different kind of people all over.”
ICE already has moved Bofill from a transitional hold in Miramar to the Krome North Service Processing Center.
“The conditions [in Miramar] were awful and designed to break the spirit of the people detained,” Delgado said. “He’s a very strong person, and he knows he’s not alone…[and that] we’re all doing everything we can.”
An ICE spokesman sent a statement to New Times confirming that it arrested Bofill and claiming that he hadn’t complied with the terms of his 2023 admission to the United States. “ICE will continue to execute the Trump administration’s enforcement priorities by identifying, arresting and removing illegal aliens who violate U.S. law,” the statement read. It also encouraged people who might be ICE targets to leave the country of their own volition.
Delgado sees the situation as a senseless tragedy for Miami’s Cuban music community.
“My husband is one of the best Cuban musicians of his generation,” she said. “He’s very talented and a joy for everybody who meets him. He does a lot for his local community with workshops and events. He’s loved wherever he goes. I cannot think of a community that would not want him to be part of them.”
Born in Manzanillo, Cuba in 1987, Bofill began studying music at 9 years old. He eventually earning acceptance to the Conservatorio Jose Maria Ochoa in Holguín, Cuba, where he specialized in symphonic and popular percussion — despite not being able to afford his own instruments. “I studied in bed or on a piece of wood,” he told VoyagerMIA in 2024. “At the conservatory stage I got up every day at 6 a.m. for three years to be able to reserve the only xylophone of the school or the Timpanis, we had one for all the percussion students.”
After graduating in 2006, Bofill taught at a nearby music school for three years before heading to Havana. He soaked up the diverse wonders of that music scene, then carried those influences to the United States, where he formed the Afro-Cuban jazz/world music outfit Golpes Libres. Over the years since he has toured in dozens of countries and collaborated with countless artists, including on the Sintesis album “Ancestros Sinfónico” in 2022, which won Best Folk Album at the 23rd Annual Latin Grammy Awards.
“It has not been a bed of roses,” he told VoyagerMIA. “I left my home town when I was only 14 years old, and since then, I have always been on the move. There is nothing that makes me happier than playing,” he said. “It’s like a drug in the best sense of the word. When I’m improvising specifically, I travel to a place where there are no problems, no stress. It’s always the same feeling, and of course, I always want to go back to that place.”
Bofill’s arrest came just days after another Cuban musician, Andy García, of Miami’s García Brothers, was detained in Los Angeles on Aug. 15.
