HAVANA — The United States is working on a plan to bring the vast majority of exiled Cuban political prisoners from Spain to America, and has already processed the first case, a senior State Department official said.

There are three dozen Cuban political prisoners already in Spain, along with more than 100 family members. The official said nearly all are likely to accept the offer.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the program, which has not yet been announced. The plan gets around a Catch-22 whereby Cubans who left the island were no longer considered in harm's way, and thus not eligible for traditional asylum requests in the U.S.