The nation’s only Cuban-born lawmaker is urging the Department of Homeland Security to investigate a list of people he claims may be agents of Cuba’s current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, or related to the late Fidel Castro.
On Sept. 9, Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., who fled Cuba as a child in 1960, called on DHS to investigate individuals his office and human rights groups believe are tied to Díaz-Canel’s regime or the late Castro brothers, Fox News
reports. Gimenez, who represents the congressional district closest to Cuba in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, sent a “warning” to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem about the “presence of agents of the murderous Castro regime and the Communist Party of Cuba currently residing in the United States.”“It is crucial that the Department of Homeland Security enforce existing U.S. laws to identify, deport, and repatriate these individuals who pose a threat to our national security,” Gimenez wrote in the letter.
Gimenez’s letter named individuals in the U.S. under humanitarian programs who, according to pro-democracy groups, are tied to Díaz-Canel’s communist regime and accused of human rights abuses. It comes after Trump ordered an airstrike on a boat allegedly carrying drug-trafficking gang members, a move critics say violates the War Powers Act.
The strike, part of Trump’s crackdown on cartels, dictatorships, and migration, has spurred Cuban-American lawmakers and activists to push for similar action against Havana.
The Florida lawmaker argues that many of the individuals named in his letter “gamed” the immigration system, and sees their presence in the country as a “direct insult” to Cuban exiles who fled in search of freedom. He urged Noem to deliver a report by Sept. 26 outlining whether DHS has investigated the named individuals, pursued deportation or removal, and, if not, why no action has been taken.
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