The commissioner of the city of Miami, Rolando Escalona, delivered a direct message to the Cuban people during a working meeting with Cuban-American businessman Iván Herrera and the chief of the Miami Police, Manuel "Manny" Morales.
"To the people of Cuba, what we are doing, we are doing for your freedom. For the freedom of your children, for the freedom of your grandchildren, for the freedom of your grandparents. For the freedom for you to vote for whoever you want. The moment is now. And we are only asking for one thing, freedom from the oppressive system of the dictators who have destroyed an entire country for 67 years," declared the commissioner in the video shared by Herrera on his social media.
Herrera, founder and CEO of Univista Insurance, described the significance of the meeting with urgent words: "We cannot fail this time; the people of Cuba must not suffer under another dictator, another bad president. We want to do things the right way, and we are preparing everything as best as we can for the day when Cubans can enjoy full, well-planned freedom, as it should be."
The video is part of a sustained campaign that Herrera, born in Alquízar (Artemisa) in 1973, has intensified since early 2026. In March, he traveled to Washington D.C. alongside figures from the exile community to meet with Republican congressmen and officials from the State Department, and he spoke before the full Republican Congress with President Trump present.
On that occasion, Herrera stated: "I have good news for you. You will soon be free", and set 2026 as a decisive year: "I believe this year will not pass without change. If the year ends and nothing happens, and nothing happens under this Administration, we can forget about Cuba".
Morales, for his part, has been sending direct messages to the Cuban police for months, urging them not to repress the people.
In January, he warned that "the end is near, the government will fall"; on March 4 he announced his candidacy to lead the Cuban police reform in the event of a transition; and on March 18, he sent a video that garnered over 147,000 views on Facebook.
The police chief, who announced his retirement from the Miami Police Department for October 2026 after more than three decades of service, has stated that he has "the knowledge and the will necessary to transform the current arm of authoritarianism into a democratic police institution that serves the people and not an ideology."
This coordinated activism between the Cuban exile community and officials in Miami occurs in the context of the Trump administration, with Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, which has directed its foreign policy towards promoting political change on the island.
In the institutional arena, the Miami-Dade Board of Commissioners approved resolution 11-A7 in March, which calls for the involvement of the Cuban-American community in Washington's decisions regarding the future of Cuba, while the exile signed the so-called "Liberation Agreement" and celebrated the Free Cuba Rally in Hialeah with thousands of participants.
Filed under: