Damir Ortiz, a 10-year-old with leukemia and a rare genetic disease that has caused a tumor in his left eye, was medevaced Wednesday from Cuba to the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, after overcoming bureaucratic obstacles and the reluctance of the Cuban government. 
From left to right, Florida United States Representatives Mario Díaz-Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar, and Carlos A. Giménez are three Cuban Americans in the U.S. Congress. They will face tough questions from constituents if a new travel ban by the Trump administration for Cuba and Venezuela goes into effect.
Last month, 79-year-old Martha Beatriz Roque, a prominent dissident and former political prisoner, who received the International Women of Courage Award from the U.S. State Department in absentia last year, was finally allowed to come to Miami by Cuban authorities because she needed medical treatment after falling gravely ill.
“Support for the Cuban people” through cooperation in such humanitarian cases has been a central tenet of U.S. policy under several administrations. Under current versions of a Trump administration plan to ban Cubans from entering the United States, people like Ortiz and Roque would have never made it to Miami — likely dying on the Communist-run island.
The immigration restrictions now on the table would impose an absolute ban on entry by Cuba and Venezuelan nationals, regardless of what country the live in, with no exceptions for the elderly, the sick or harassed dissidents, sources familiar with on-going discussions told the Miami Herald — trapping them in dictatorships recently labeled by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as “enemies of humanity.”
The plan — still being crafted by Stephen Miller, a key advisor to President Donald Trump and architect of his mass deportation plan — would also extend similar but slightly less harsh restrictions on Haitian nationals and, sources say, potentially extend to other Caribbean nations.
Before Trump took office, his team had approached several Caribbean governments to accept undocumented migrants from the U.S. whose nations refused to allow them to be returned. Travel bans on those island nations potentially could be used as bargaining chips in negotiations to accept deportees.
The extreme travel ban policies emerging from the White House have been largely kept from Congress so far but will likely pose a major dilemma for many South Florida politicians, whose communities have large populations of constituents with deep ties to the targeted countries.
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The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, ordered the withdrawal of U.S. government funds from the independent portal CubaNet, as part of the Trump administration's policy to suspend foreign assistance.
The measure represents a significant blow to the work of independent media operating from exile and giving a voice to journalists within Cuba.
In the opinion of Roberto Hechavarría Pilia, director of the news agency, the decision significantly complicates its continuity.
"It will be extremely complicated to maintain our work as it has been conceived until now," he stated to Diario de Cuba, after being informed of the end of the grant by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
CubaNet, founded in 1994, is regarded as the pioneer of independent journalism in Cuba and has served as a platform for journalists on the Island, allowing them to expose the reality censored by the regime.
"Our goal has always been to counteract the propaganda of the Castro regime. Without this funding, the government in Havana will have greater freedom to intensify its propaganda and repression," Hechavarría stated.
The cancellation of funds to CubaNet is not an isolated incident. At the end of January, several independent exile media outlets were notified of the temporary suspension of assistance while the U.S. government reviewed its financing of international programs. However, last week, in the case of CubaNet, the suspension became permanent.
According to the received notification, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Peter W. Marocco, director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources at the State Department and designated deputy administrator of USAID, determined that the funding program for CubaNet "was not in the national interest." As a result, they decided to terminate and rescind it.
For Hechavarría, the most serious consequence of this decision is that CubaNet will be unable to fulfill its mission with the necessary effectiveness.
"What is happening with independent Cuban journalism, civil society, freedom of expression, and the struggle for democracy in Cuba is a step backwards, just as the Castro regime is at its weakest point," he denounced.
Furthermore, he warned about the geopolitical significance of the measure: "Cuba remains a totalitarian regime just 90 miles from the United States, allied with Russia, China, and Iran. Undoubtedly, for Havana, it is good news that efforts to oversee its actions are being reduced."
Source Cibercuba
The U.S. State Department under Secretary Marco Rubio abruptly canceled
foreign aid programs supporting opposition activists, political
prisoners and religious groups in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, after concluding that they were not “in the national interest.” raising concerns about a shift in U.S. foreign policy.
The canceled programs were managed by the International Republican Institute (IRI), a nonprofit organization linked to the ruling party, and were focused on promoting democracy in authoritarian countries, according to a publication from El Nuevo Herald.
The publication states that “all but three of the 95 programs” that the Institute had in these countries were abruptly canceled. The remaining three programs, related to groups in Venezuela, are on hold, following President Donald Trump’s executive order to freeze all foreign aid funds for 90 days.
“The rest of the 175 programs of the Institute worldwide are also in limbo because they rely on funds directly allocated by Congress to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED has said it has been unable to access the money,” the article reads.
In the cancellation notices sent by the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), it was stated that the contracts “were not aligned” with the agencies’ priorities and were not “in the national interest.”
“The IRI’s Democratic counterpart, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), is facing a similar challenge. Sources said that about a hundred programs were terminated, and only one program remained in the region, focused on Venezuela,” says the publication.
Most employees of both institutes, the National Endowment for Democracy, and other organizations working with foreign aid programs have been given administrative leave.
A Supreme Court ruling ordered the US government to release part of the funds owed for the work already carried out by some of these organizations and contractors managing foreign aid programs. However, with so many contracts already canceled and staff on leave or dismissed, it is unclear how the government will proceed.
In a Senate hearing on Wednesday, February 26, 2024, regarding the progress of US interests in the Western Hemisphere, Florida Senator Rick Scott echoed current opinions on foreign aid among Trump administration officials in an exchange about how to justify the money spent to taxpayers.
“My problem is that I can’t go to Florida and say, ‘Boy, I’m excited about how much money we spent on foreign aid because something might happen. Let’s see: the Castro regime still controls Cuba, Venezuela just stole another election, Ortega is strengthening himself in Nicaragua,'” said the senator.
The suspension of foreign aid programs for the promotion of democracy in authoritarian countries, a bipartisan US policy maintained for decades, has left many wondering if the Trump Administration has abandoned that objective.
El Nuevo Herald also indicates that the issue was addressed in a call with IRI leaders to warn staff working for the Florida Congressional delegation, home to the largest Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan communities in the US, “that the organization would not survive much longer without funding, probably only a few weeks.”
They add that in the call, the president of the International Republican Institute, Daniel Twining, reportedly said that “cuts to democracy promotion would only benefit dictators in places like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.”
Source: The Miami Herald
Ask the island’s rulers and they’ll say the revolutionary dream lives on. But to ordinary Cubans stricken by rocketing food prices, it has never felt further away
The road turns into a dirt track entering the town of San Felipe, home to those who can’t leave. In the main square, the only people around are a woman sitting on a bench in the shade of the ruined church and a group of five men hunkered down in the porch of a once-great mansion, trying to fix a bicycle with a hammer.
Sixty-six years after rebels led by Fidel Castro overthrew the brutal government of Fulgencio Batista, many Cubans say their lives are worse than ever, and that the island’s Communist rulers are growing ever more paranoid and repressive.
San San Felipe
This time the threat to the Cuban revolution is not a US-backed invasion or the collapse of the Soviet Union, but a slow gutting of Cuba’s future as young people give up on its prospects. For decades, Cubans needed to apply for permission to leave the island, but since 2013 those restrictions have been lifted.
Between 2022 and 2023, one in ten Cubans — nearly a million people — left the island, mostly for the United States. In small towns such as San Felipe, an hour and a half from Havana, with a pre-pandemic population of 2,000, the only ones left are the very poor, the infirm, the elderly and the especially patriotic.
The exodus is primarily due to an economic crisis that has driven prices to impossible levels — a 5lb bag of pork now costs $16, as much as a junior doctor’s monthly wage — while incomes remain incredibly low. Institutions including Cuba’s once-famous health and education systems are imploding under the burden of international sanctions and endemic state mismanagement. The island’s jails hold hundreds of political prisoners. Anyone publicly criticizing the government, including on social media, risks joining them. More...
HAVANA, Feb 10 - Some U.S.-funded media outlets that report on Cuba are seeking alternative sources of financing while the Trump administration pursues a plan to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), leaving their fate in limbo.
The U.S. State Department has issued worldwide stop-work directives - now under court review - that have effectively frozen most foreign aid, including funding for media outlets that cover Cuba but operate independently of the Cuban government.
The move to dismantle USAID, Trump has said, is aimed at ensuring foreign aid is aligned with his "America First" policy.
Miami-based CubaNet, which received a dedicated $500,000 from USAID in 2024 to engage "on-island young Cubans through objective and uncensored multimedia journalism," last week published an editorial on its site seeking donations from readers.
"We are facing an unexpected challenge: the suspension of key funding that sustained part of our work," the editorial read. "If you value our work and believe in keeping the truth alive, we ask for your support."
The Madrid-based Diario de Cuba, in a column from Director Pablo Díaz Espí on Friday, launched a similar plea.
"Aid to independent journalism from the U.S. Government is suspended, which makes our work even more arduous," Diaz Espi said.
The decision to slash the funding appears to conflict with a broader U.S. government policy towards Cuba that has long funded opposition and human rights advocacy groups, as well as "independent" media.
USAID funding for Cuba-related media amounted to $2.3 million in 2024, according to agency budget reports, the majority earmarked for programs titled "Independent Media and Free Flow of Information."
The programs infuriate the Cuban government, which has long chided the U.S. and its aid agency for underwriting digital news outlets it calls proxies for U.S. foreign policy.
Foreign Vice Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio called the U.S.-funded media "dependent on its master," in a Friday post on social media.
"Is there anything independent about a journalist, an activist or an opposition member who lives off the money paid by the US government through USAID and now feels suffocated when they shut off the tap?," de Cossio said.
The Cuban government allows some foreign news agencies and outlets to work in Cuba, but has largely prohibited U.S.-government funded media from operating on the island, forcing many journalists into exile and pressuring others to stop their work.
Most such news sites are censured in Cuba, including some, like online website CiberCuba, which says it does not receive U.S. or government funding of any kind.
Newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has promised to restore a "tough" policy on Cuba, doubling down on sanctions on the communist-run government. (NOTE: Marco Rubio has made his identity as the son of Cuban exiles a major component of his political persona, but according to the Washington Post, it's a fake: Rubio's parents arrived in the U.S. in 1956, two years before Fidel Castro took power making them Immigrants, not Refugees. See The Atlantic for additional content)
Rubio has not commented on the halting of U.S. funding for the Cuba-focused media outlets.
The Real Cuba is an independent news and commentary outlet and does not receive any Governmental nor political organizations funds.