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In a new call that shakes the Cuban exile community in the United States, Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar urged this Thursday to eradicate any form of economic assistance to the Cuban regime.
From her official account on the social network X, the legislator for Florida's 27th district stated that the time has come to make difficult but necessary decisions.
The time for Cuba's freedom has arrived. Today, we have a President and a Secretary of State who are determined to cleanse our hemisphere of tyrants, drug traffickers, and dictators. But exile also has a historic responsibility: to stop providing oxygen to the dictatorship. Because every dollar, every trip, and every gesture of false normality prolongs the life of a criminal regime and condemns the Cuban people to another 60 years of misery, repression, and slavery, he wrote.
In her post, María Elvira spoke directly to the Cuban Americans who, from exile, maintain economic ties with their families on the island.
He urged them to put an end to those gestures that, although humanitarian, he considers counterproductive.
"This is the time to stop everything: no more tourism, no more remittances, no more mechanisms that continue to finance and sustain the dictatorship", he stated firmly.
"And yes, I understand: it is devastating to think about a mother’s hunger, about a child in immediate need of help. No one is indifferent to that pain," he noted.
Salazar did not overlook the painful nature of his proposal.
He acknowledged that stopping remittances or visiting family represents a devastating emotional blow for thousands of Cubans who live with the daily anxiety of helping their loved ones.
"But that is precisely the brutal dilemma we face as exiles: to alleviate short-term suffering or to free Cuba forever, he warned."
"We cannot continue to be hostages of a regime that even from exile forces us to finance our own oppression. In the final hour of the regime, exile must choose: freedom," he concluded.
A new chapter in the battle of exile
His exhortation comes in a context marked by the hardening of political discourse in South Florida, as influential sectors of the exile community have begun to mobilize to demand that the U.S. government adopt a policy of maximum pressure towards Havana.
This Thursday, Congress members Carlos Giménez and Mario Díaz-Balart announced that they will formally request that President Trump’s government impose a total suspension of flights to Cuba and eliminate the sending of remittances to the island.
The statements were made at a press conference attended by members of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, exile organizations, elected local officials, and community activists.
Both legislators, representatives from South Florida, justified the measures as part of a strategy to economically suffocate the Cuban regime, which they did not hesitate to describe as "a cancer in our hemisphere."
The message from the congress members was clear: the United States - and particularly South Florida - cannot continue to be part of a system that economically supports the Cuban government while it continues to repress its people.
Although she did not participate in the meeting, María Elvira Salazar's call reveals that she agrees with her colleagues on the request for new measures.
Salazar's message has been met with applause from some sectors of the Cuban exile community, but it has also raised doubts and criticisms from those who fear that the measures will impact families more than the regime.
The dilemma between humanitarian aid and political pressure has been a constant in the Cuban-American community for decades.
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