Cuba

Sen. Ashley Moody and Sen. Rick Scott led a resolution in the U.S. Senate commending “the brave freedom-loving people of Cuba” on Friday to mark four years since thousands of people filled Cuba’s streets and public squares in what was seen as the country’s largest outpouring of protest in decades.

Human Rights Watch reported Friday that hundreds of protesters remain behind bars, even though the Cuban government agreed in January to release many following negotiations led by the Vatican.

The Trump administration has taken a harder line against Cuba's government than the Biden administration.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, has penned a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking the Trump administration to help free hundreds of political prisoners she says have been wrongfully detained by the Cuban authoritarian regime.

The Miami-based Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees Radio and TV Martí and the Martí Noticias website, was spared from layoffs at Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Immigrant advocates and others say President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation policies are fostering a climate of “fear” in South Florida’s immigrant communities, mainly with his decision to abruptly end temporary visas for hundreds of thousands of legal U.S. residents.

In an interview Saturday on CNN, the South Florida Republican lawmaker said he has directly relayed his concerns about President Donald Trump’s deportation enforcement strategy with Administration officials.

Local media outlets in South Florida reported Thursday that the Cuban detainees are angry that they are being held without being told when they may be released and fear they may be transferred to other immigrant detention facilities outside the U.S.

Haitian and Venezuelan community leaders condemned President Donald Trump’s newly announced travel ban policy that will impact hundreds of thousands of South Florida families with ties to both countries.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term, announcing that citizens of 12 countries — including Haiti — would be banned from visiting the United States. Those from Cuba and Venezuela, along with five other countries would face heightened restrictions.

After the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that the Trump administration can, for now, end humanitarian parole for half a million migrants, immigration advocates insist the legal battle is not over — and believe it will end sooner than later, now in their favor. Most of the beneficiaries, who come from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua, are in Florida.

President Donald Trump's crackdown on Cuban immigration has riveted a community that strongly backed him twice. After record arrivals of Cuban migrants, Trump wants to deport recent arrivals from the island. In March, he revoked temporary humanitarian parole for about 300,000 Cubans.