In a first such decision, a Miami federal jury has found that travel booking company Expedia Group ows $29.85 million to a Cuban-American family in damages for having promoted and sold bookings to Floridians at hotels in land confiscated by the Cuban government during the early days of Fidel Castro’s revolution. The case was filed by Mario Echevarría, one of the heirs of a Cuban family that claimed ownership of Cayo Coco, a small key off the northern coast of central Cuba, against Expedia and its affiliate sites Hotels.com and Orbitz under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. It is the first of such lawsuits to reach a jury trial.
Tourists on a Cayo Coco beach in December 2020. EFE EFE/Sipa USA
In a first such decision, a Miami federal jury has found that travel booking company Expedia Group ows $29.85 million to a Cuban-American family in damages for having promoted and sold bookings to Floridians at hotels in land confiscated by the Cuban government during the early days of Fidel Castro’s revolution. The case was filed by Mario Echevarría, one of the heirs of a Cuban family that claimed ownership of Cayo Coco, a small key off the northern coast of central Cuba, against Expedia and its affiliate sites Hotels.com and Orbitz under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. It is the first of such lawsuits to reach a jury trial.
The Helms-Burton Act gives U.S. nationals who hold a claim to property that the Cuban government confiscated without compensation the right to sue companies, American or foreign, who have profited or “trafficked” in such property. From 1996 to 2019, successive U.S. presidents had suspended the Helms-Burton provision, Title III, that provides that legal path. In 2019, President Donald Trump enacted that portion of the act during his first term.
The long pause and several other legal technicalities have complicated the attempts of dozens of U.S. companies and property heirs from prevailing in court. Several other prominent Helms-Burton lawsuits have been turned down on appeal or are headed to the Supreme Court after years of expensive litigation.
But a jury in Florida’s Southern District found last Friday that Expedia and its affiliates didn’t follow the law by promoting tourism to Cuba and by marketing and selling bookings for Cayo Coco’s all-inclusive hotels built in land confiscated from Echevarría’s family in 1960.
“This is a major victory not only for our client, but also for the broader community of Cuban-Americans whose property was wrongfully taken and has been exploited by U.S. companies in partnership with the Cuban communist dictatorship,” attorney Andrés Rivero said. “We are proud to have played a role in securing justice under a law that had never before been tested before a jury.”
The verdict comes six years after Echevarría first notified Expedia that the family was planning to sue in August 2019.
After a two-week trial, the jury found that Echevarría had a 12,5% ownership interest in Cayo Coco and awarded $9,950,000 in damages. The jury also decided to triple the amount the companies must pay because Expedia and its affiliates continued promoting hotels in Cayo Coco after being notified of the potential lawsuit. It is yet unclear if each company would have to pay $30 million separately, and the judge presiding over the case, Federico A. Moreno, has ordered further proceedings.
The travel booking companies have until July to challenge the verdict, Moreno wrote.
Santosh Aravind, a lawyer representing the travel booking companies, told the jury the firms had committed a “mistake,” not an intentional act of “trafficking,” and questioned Echevarría’s inheritance claims on Cayo Coco’s property, Law360 reported. But the jury was unpersuaded.
“We are disappointed in the jury’s verdict, which we do not believe was supported by the law or evidence.,” David Shank, a lawyer representing the companies, told the Miami Herald. “We believe the court was correct to decline immediate entry of judgment and look forward to the court’s consideration of the legal sufficiency of the evidence presented to the jury.”
Bay of Pigs Invasion - Playa Giron
17–20 April 1961; 64 years ago
The Legacy of the Bay of Pigs: Scars on Collective Memory
The Bay of Pigs has left deep scars on the collective memory of both Cubans and Americans. For many Cuban exiles, this defeat symbolizes the lost opportunity to liberate their homeland and the pain of losing loved ones in the process.
The Cuban casualties were hundreds of wounded and 157 dead, whom Cubans remembers as eternal heroes of the homeland for their sacrifice.
The cultural and political impact persists. In Cuba, the victory over the invasion has been celebrated as a triumph of the revolution, while in the United States, it left a legacy of mistrust.
An April 17, 1961 map showing the locations of invading forces. Fidel Castro said one invasion force, apparently the main one, struck in southern part of Las Villas Province (1). Another force was reported ashore at the edge of southern Matanzas Province in Cochinas Bay area (2). Western Pinar Del Rio Province (3) was scene of another reported force. Washington exile forces said another force had landed at Baracoa (4), northeast of Santiago. NBC quoted a Cuban exile spokesman as saying invasion operations were moving ahead favorably in Matanza Province (5), the Santiago area (6), with parachutists dropped on the Isle of Pines (7).
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
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.
Venezuelans in US have 60 days before facing threat of deportation; local Venezuelan leader in Miami speaks out
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the United States now have about 60 days before they face the threat of deportation after the Trump administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for them.
This most recent escalation of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration eliminates the right to stay of more than 300,000 people.
The move comes as a one-two punch for Venezuelans who were already reeling from last week’s decision to rescind an 18-month extension of TPS, an extension introduced in the final days of the outgoing Biden administration.
Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the Trump administration’s decision to terminate TPS for thousands of Venezuelans.
“Well, the TPP program has been abused, and it doesn’t have integrity right now,” said Noem. “We are ending that extension of that program, adding some integrity back into it, and this administration is evaluating all of our programs to make sure they truly are something that’s to the benefit of the United States, so that they’re not to the benefit of criminals.”
The decision will affect more than 300,000 Venezuelans who had TPS through April. It gives them just 60 days before becoming vulnerable to deportation.
The New York Times reported that another group of more than 250,000 people protected through September will not be affected — for now.
“Right now, we need to do something to stop that decision, because for us, it’s a reason of living or dying,” said Jose Colina with the organization “Venezolanos Perseguidos Políticos en el Exilio.”
The revocations of TPS are certain to have profound effects in Florida, which has the largest number of TPS beneficiaries out of any state, more than half of whom are from Venezuela.
“All people from Venezuela are very sad, right? Very ‘be careful,’ you know, because I don’t know what’s going on with this situation,” said Colina. “A lot of people are in danger right now.”
All of this comes just days after Venezuela had agreed to take back migrants deported from the U.S., following a meeting between President Nicolás Maduro and senior Trump administration official Richard Grenell.
Friday’s meeting also led to the release of six U.S. detainees held in the South American country.
As for Sunday’s decision, hundreds of thousands of people are now faced with an uncertain future.
“We are not numbers, we are human beings,” said Colina. “You know, working, good jobs, follow the law. Why [do they] now make a decision that’s very bad for 600,000 people living in the United States?”
(Source: Cable News Network, Inc. & NY Times)