Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla defended Cuban migrants in the United States on Tuesday and criticized the deportation policies of the Donald Trump administration, amid recent arrests of Cubans by immigration agents.
In a message posted on X, Rodríguez stated that "many of the Cubans who have emigrated to the U.S. are victims of the habitual and growing discriminatory treatment suffered by newcomers." The chancellor accompanied his words with a photograph of agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
He also lashed out at those he described as "anti-Cuban politicians," accusing them of having "manipulated emigration for political purposes" and later "abandoning to their fate those they invited to migrate, promising them success and protection in the face of harsh anti-immigrant repression."
Rodríguez did not mention names, although the Cuban regime commonly uses that expression to refer to Cuban-American politicians who are critical of Havana.
Two Cuban musicians detained by ICE
The statement comes after the recent arrests of two renowned Cuban musicians at U.S. airports.
The pianist Andy García Palacios was arrested on August 15 at Los Angeles International Airport and taken to the Adelanto Processing Center in California.
His lawyer, Avelino González, asserted that "they were waiting for him" and argued that García Palacios entered the United States legally, has no criminal record, and is currently undergoing an active immigration process.
Four days later, the percussionist Degnis Bofill, a Latin Grammy winner, was detained by ICE at Miami International Airport while returning from New York.
Bofill remains detained at the Krome North Processing Center, in Miami-Dade. The arrests have raised concern within the Cuban artistic community, and Chucho Valdés publicly expressed his sorrow over the arrest of García Palacios.
This weekend, ICE operations were reported in Little Havana, although federal authorities did not confirm that it was a coordinated raid.
Havana changes its discourse on its émigrés
The chancellor's defense of migrants stands in stark contrast to decades of hostility from the regime towards those who left Cuba, particularly during the early years of the exodus, when many emigrants were officially stigmatized as "worms" and "traitors."
In recent years, particularly since the tightening of U.S. immigration policy, Havana has sought to position itself as a defender of Cubans affected by detentions and deportations in the United States, while holding Washington accountable for historically encouraging emigration from the island.
At the same time, the Cuban government continues to receive deportation flights from the United States. On August 21, a group of 127 Cubans was returned on a flight that arrived at the José Martí International Airport in Havana, and two of them were taken to a research agency due to their alleged involvement in criminal activities committed before leaving the country.
Rodríguez had previously used the migration issue to challenge Washington. In July, he presented images of ICE operations before the United Nations and, in January, criticized the detention of a five-year-old migrant child with the message: "There are no excuses for detaining a child."
His new intervention once again places the Cuban emigration at the center of the political dispute between Havana and Washington, this time at a moment when the escalation of actions by ICE is generating increasing concern among Cubans with pending immigration processes in the United States.
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