A recent gathering featuring the writer Zoé Valdés, the political scientist Julio Shiling, and the scientist César Reynel Aguilera focused on what the participants describe as a historic change: the American left no longer hides its ties to the Castro regime, but openly displays them.
The trigger for the debate was the visit of four Democratic congress members to Cuba from July 9 to 13, 2026, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the 11J protests. Teresa Leger Fernández, Delia Catalina Ramírez, Maxine Elizabeth Dexter, and Mark Pocan met with Miguel Díaz-Canel in Havana and described the situation on the island as a "silent Gaza," a phrase Pocan attributed to a Cuban citizen he spoke with on the streets of the capital.
"Previously, the American left was very careful to avoid any association with Castro's intelligence or with Castroism. That is no longer the case," stated Reynel Aguilera. The reference to Nancy Pelosi —who led a delegation of nine Democratic congress members to Havana in February 2015, during the Obama thaw— serves as a symbol of that historical pattern which, according to the participants, now operates without any disguise.
"On the anniversary of July 11, a bunch of bandits from the Democratic Party went to Havana. It's right in front of us," asserted Reynel Aguilera, referring to the pattern of Democratic visits to the island.
For his part, Shiling outlined a genealogy of Castro's influence on American politics that dates back to the 1960s and 70s, with radical groups like the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground, and includes the case of Senator George McGovern, referenced by Reynel Aguilera. However, the latter distinguished that past from the current moment, as he believes that the congressmen today have access to intelligence committees and privileged information. "It's at a different level now," he said.
In this regard, Reynel Aguilera emphasized that what is happening now has a qualitatively different scale. He also pointed to the Congressional Black Caucus as a space of Castroist influence.
The visit in July was not an isolated event. In April 2026, Congress members Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan Jackson had already traveled to Havana and met with Díaz-Canel, marking the first of two Democratic visits in less than four months. In May, a group of 32 Democratic lawmakers called for a change in U.S. policy toward Cuba, and in June they tried again to block measures from the Trump Administration against the island.
Shiling was categorical in pointing out that this activity is not new for U.S. security agencies. "The FBI has ample information about 67 years of Castro-communist activism in groups within the United States... and about an extraordinary presence that aims to destabilize the United States."
Reynel Aguilera, for his part, pointed to an electoral dimension of the phenomenon. In his view, the Democratic Party's plan was to use newly arrived Cuban opponents in exile to undermine the political control of the Cuban community in South Florida. "The plan did not work because Trump was re-elected," he stated.
At the time of the visit from the Democratic congress members in July, Cuba had between 1,281 and 1,306 political prisoners, of which at least 338 were linked to the protests of July 11th, a reality that the visiting legislators did not mention in their public statements.
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