Cuban Americans Stance on No Kings Day Protests
HAVANA TIMES – Today, in various cities and towns across the United States, the No Kings Day II protest is taking place—a mobilization called by migrant organizations and progressive groups to reject the authoritarian policies of Donald Trump and his anti-immigrant measures.
Former Cuban American congressman Joe García, in exclusive statements to La Joven Cuba, explained that this day is “basically a way to build resistance or to ask the administration to take a different stance.”
In his message, he directed his criticism toward the Cuban American diaspora, traditionally aligned with conservative positions. “What’s most shocking is to see the Cuban community, which so often clamors for democracy and freedom in Cuba, remain overwhelmingly silent in the face of these violations of our constitutional and civil rights,” he said.
The contradiction is glaring: a diaspora that prospered thanks to favorable immigration policies now, for the most part, stays silent about the abuses suffered by others. “Cubans have had the good fortune of a generous immigration law that has been part of our community’s success.” A privilege that has not translated into solidarity with those facing persecution or deportation.
In Miami, the epicenter of much of the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan community, the march has a special meaning. In that city, long presented as a land of freedom, detentions, deportations, and immigration raids have multiplied against the very groups that once found political refuge there.
A symbol of that shift is visible in Hialeah, “the most Hispanic city in the country,” which signed an agreement with ICE to collaborate in immigration raids. “A police force that is overwhelmingly Latino, a commission that is completely Latino, and they’ve lent themselves to this,” García commented in another recent interview.
The former congressman has been particularly critical of the role of Cuban American leaders in this moment. “You can’t be loyal to Donald Trump and at the same time defend immigrants,” he stated.
The No Kings Day II protest seeks precisely to confront that kind of forgetfulness. In a country where the president faces multiple criminal trials, thousands of people are taking to the streets to remind everyone that “democracy is upheld through struggle, not by sitting at home,” insisted the Democratic politician.
A massive turnout is expected—more than five million people and thousands of demonstrations nationwide—in what organizers anticipate will be the largest protest in modern US history.
But the meaning of this mobilization goes beyond Trump. It centers on a society that seems to have forgotten its foundational values—especially a significant portion of Cuban Americans, particularly Republicans, who harshly criticize the Cuban government’s political discrimination 90 miles away, yet reproduce it the first chance their own party holds power.
From Miami, many of those who call for resistance and urge Cubans on the island to take to the streets in defense of freedom watch impassively as mothers are deported and separated from their children. It is ironic that many who demand democracy fail to practice it in the country that has taken them in.
They demand freedom for Cuba but tolerate abuses in their own surroundings, claiming the right to decide—according to their political convenience—who gets to stay and who deserves to be part of the increasingly fragile US American dream.
First published in Spanish by Joven Cuba and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
Michael writes: “Cubans should be seeking to change their own system but sadly don’t have the courage to do so.”
How wrong you are in your assessment of patriotic Cubans living on the island. Furthermore, how easy it is to sit back in the comfort and safety of one’s domicile to watch and then make negative comments about Cubans trying desperately to survive under a brutal, totalitarian government armed to the teeth.
Was it not on July 11, 2021 when a group of mostly young, brave, courageous Cubans did exactly what Michael is advocating: demonstrating some courage? On Cuban streets these brave, courageous citizens demonstrated for their human rights, for freedom, for food, electricity, and the list goes on ad nauseam.
Without arms, without weapons, they bravely and courageously did what you have advocated. And what was the predictable result? Lengthy jail time, incarceration without due process, or if any, certainly in favour of the brutal, police and the specialized tactical operatives. Today Michael as you write, many of these courageous Cubans are serving jail time and will continue to be incarcerated as a lesson for other Cubans thinking of publicly- on Cuban streets – asking for basic humanitarian rights.
No, Michael to your simplistic assertion. Cubans, in fact, are very, very courageous as factual evidence shows; however, when faced with overwhelming violent odds coming from a brutal, totalitarian government armed to the teeth and willing to sacrifice Cuban lives to maintain power, one can understand Cubans’ caution for change.
There is a reason that he is a former congressman, the United States is a democracy and his views got him voted out and voted overwhelmingly Trump in. Unregulated immigration is unsustainable. Cubans should be seeking to change their own system but sadly don’t have the courage to do so.
Well said, thank you.