Latest news with #Cuba
New York Times
an hour ago
- General
- New York Times
How the Supreme Court Made Legal Immigrants Vulnerable to Deportation
The government knows their names. Their fingerprints have been scanned into government computers. The Department of Homeland Security knows where most of them live, because the immigrants in question — more than 500,000 of them — reside in the United States legally. But two new Supreme Court decisions have left them open to deportation, an abrupt turn for a population that has been able to remain in the country by using legal pathways for people facing war and political turmoil at home. 'Thousands of people — especially Haitians, Cubans and Venezuelans — instantly shift from 'lawfully present' to 'deportable,'' said Jason Houser, a former official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Biden administration. Now, with their protections revoked while legal challenges move through lower courts, many immigrants have found themselves in a vulnerable position. Because so many of them have shared detailed information with the government, including addresses, biometrics and the names of their sponsors, they could be easy to track down at a moment when the Trump administration is looking for ways to deport people quickly. 'Ending the C.H.N.V. parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First,' said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department. She was using an abbreviation for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the countries in the humanitarian parole program targeted by the Trump administration. Whether and how aggressively the administration might move to begin rounding up people whose legal protections have been revoked remains unclear, though officials signaled several months ago that they feel they have the authority to do so. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
JFK Files: How Cuba's War Of Words Flooded The Americas
Join authors Dennis McCuistion and Dory Wiley for an explosive panel discussion at The Dallas Express' 'Who Killed JFK?' event on June 9, 2025. , , or today! The CIA feared that Cuba's true revolutionary export wasn't fighters—it was a playbook for turning a country's own resources against itself. Newly declassified intelligence files from the 1960s, released by President Donald Trump in March 2025 as part of the broader 'JFK Files' disclosure, detail extensive efforts by Fidel Castro's Cuba to spread communism across Latin America—not through mass invasions or military might, but by subverting nations from within. One such document from then-CIA Director John A. McCone to then-Senator John Stennis (D-MS) is marked 'Secret' and appears to be from the spring of 1963. The document outlines the CIA's assessment of Cuba's subversive strategy as a potent mix of ideological indoctrination, sabotage training, and psychological warfare. According to the report, Cuba offered revolutionaries from across Latin America a chillingly precise deal: 'Come to Cuba; we will pay your way, we will train you…in guerrilla warfare, in sabotage and in terrorism.' Though the Cubans generally avoided supplying weapons or personnel, they promised political support, training materials, demolition guides, secret communication techniques, and, in some cases, funding. The strategy focused on training guerrillas to be self-sufficient and to weaponize their surroundings. Pocket-sized manuals, such as '150 Questions on Guerrilla Warfare' by Spanish Civil War veteran Alberto Bayo, circulated widely. They instructed revolutionaries on how to craft explosives from household items and steal arms from government forces. CIA agents found versions of these texts adapted for countries like Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. In the early 1960s, the CIA leadership believed between 1,000 and 1,500 individuals from almost every Latin American country (except Uruguay) reportedly traveled to Cuba for ideological or guerrilla training. The Cuban government tried to obscure the movement, issuing visas on separate slips to avoid passport stamps and even providing falsified passports. American intelligence used agents within communist parties and foreign customs authorities to track and estimate the scale of this traffic, the director told the senator. The report highlights Cuba's two-pronged media campaign into the United States as an early extension of this subversive agenda. 'Radio Free Dixie,' hosted by North Carolina-born Robert F. Williams, was broadcast in English to Black Americans in the South, while 'The Friendly Voice of Cuba' reached a wider Southern audience. These programs, the CIA noted, could be heard clearly in Florida and across much of the Deep South and represented a subtle yet strategic psychological campaign aimed at undermining American unity. Castro's ambition, the report asserts, was to make Cuba the blueprint for the Latin American revolution. He famously stated in 1960 that he aimed to 'convert the Cordillera of the Andes into the Sierra Maestra of the American continent.' The Sierra Maestra was the mountain refuge from which Castro launched his successful revolution against Batista. 'Socialism,' he argued, could not afford to wait for democratic change—it had to be won by force. And yet, Cuban communism was not as militant as it might seem. The CIA noted that Castro often trod a careful line between the Soviet Union and Communist China. 'Castro's heart is in Peiping but his stomach is in Moscow,' one section reads, referencing the ideological tug-of-war between Chinese revolutionary zeal and Soviet pragmatism. While China promoted all-out militancy, the Soviets favored subversion through legal means. Castro attempted to serve both masters—adopting Chinese revolutionary theory but relying on Soviet material aid. Despite this ideological balancing act, the CIA classified the Cubans and Venezuelans as the only Communist parties in Latin America 'totally committed to terror and revolution.' Other parties, while ideologically aligned, preferred subversion, propaganda, and infiltration to outright violence—at least initially. Several revolutions swept through South America during the decades following Cuba's turn to communism, some succeeding and others collapsing. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas ultimately overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979 with tactics reminiscent of the Cuban model. In Chile, Salvador Allende's Marxist government came to power democratically in 1970 but was overthrown in a military coup three years later. Guerrilla movements plagued Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia, with groups like the FARC and the Shining Path drawing from the ideological and tactical lineage traced back to Cuba's training camps and printed materials. Even where communist revolutions never took root—such as in Brazil, Ecuador, or Paraguay—leftist guerrilla groups launched campaigns of sabotage and terror, often mimicking Cuban tactics. Many of these movements were ultimately suppressed, but not before spreading fear and destabilization. Perhaps the most telling metric of Cuba's nonviolent infiltration was its printed word. 'It may be worth noting,' the CIA director wrote, 'that the postal and customs authorities in Panama are destroying on average 12 tons a month of Cuban propaganda.' Another 10 tons were reportedly confiscated monthly in Costa Rica. These materials, in the form of books, pamphlets, and ideological tracts, were seen as weapons of war. Despite accepting Soviet missiles and troops during the Cuban Missile Crisis—20,000 Soviet personnel were reportedly stationed in Cuba, according to one document—the island's long-term strategy was quieter and more insidious. The CIA concluded that Cuba's effort to spread communism through nonviolent means was far more effective than the Cuban effort to spread communism through violent means.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
JFK Files: From Ticks To Tricks, How The U.S. Planned To Sabotage Cuba
Join experts Dennis McCuistion and Dory Wiley for an explosive panel discussion at The Dallas Express' 'Who Killed JFK?' event on June 9, 2025. , , or today! A newly declassified document shows U.S. officials contemplated disguising biological warfare against Cuba as a natural disaster in 1962. The file, titled MINUTES OF MEETING OF THE SPECIAL GROUP ON MONGOOSE 6 SEP 62, suggests top U.S. intelligence and defense officials, including the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the State Department, discussed the possibility of using covert biological agents to induce crop failure in Cuba during the Cold War. In a section of the document, General Marshall Carter of the Army discussed the 'extreme sensitivity' of such operations but proposed methods to make crop failures 'appear (to be) of natural origin.' McGeorge Bundy, then President John F Kennedy's National Security Advisor, reportedly said such sabotage would be acceptable if it could be plausibly denied and blamed on local disaffection or natural causes—urging caution against 'external activities such as release of chemicals… unless they could be completely covered up.' The document is heavily redacted and appears incomplete, cutting off mid-sentence. Two overlapping versions of the minutes appear in the file, one containing handwritten notes and markings and another including stamps indicating that the CIA objected to its release as recently as 2016. Despite no objection from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA marked the document 'Top Secret,' not releasing it until this year. Also included in the file is a note that 'the Attorney General and Mr. Bundy said that no reprisals against exiles who undertake active operations on their own are contemplated.' The Attorney General at the time was Robert F. Kennedy, President Kennedy's brother, indicating he was directly involved in deliberations over sabotage operations against Cuba, although his views were not recorded on the biological warfare element. Though the list of 'contemplated actions' referenced in the meeting is not included in this batch of released materials, the document indicates that the group spent significant time considering biological sabotage. Throughout the conversation, the assumption is that the United States not only had the capability to develop such agents but also the logistical means to deploy them covertly in a hostile nation. These revelations deepen the historical record of Operation Mongoose, a covert anti-Castro campaign launched in 1961 following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. As noted by the State Department's Office of the Historian, Operation Mongoose was designed 'to remove the Communist Castro regime from power in Cuba.' Directed by Air Force General Edward Lansdale, the program involved coordinated psychological, political, military, and intelligence efforts, including propaganda dissemination, sabotage missions, and assassination attempts. The State Department Historian notes that Lansdale's plan laid out a six-phase strategy presented to Robert Kennedy in February 1962 and to President Kennedy in March. Monthly initiatives were set in motion to destabilize the Cuban government, culminating in preparations for a potential military intervention in October 1962. Though many of these operations were deployed, the military intervention never occurred. The newly revealed document echoes earlier reporting from The Dallas Express, which uncovered evidence of biological tactics being used to manipulate international opinion. That report, titled JFK Files: From Hoof to Hoax, Revealing the Army's Epidemic PR Stunt, cited an Army intelligence memorandum describing how U.S. operatives influenced Mexican media to report outbreaks of hoof-and-mouth and smallpox in Cuba. The effort apparently discouraged Mexican professionals from attending an architecture conference in Havana under the guise of a public health scare. It remains unclear whether the reported epidemic ever existed—or whether it was planted as part of a psychological operation. These disclosures align with firsthand accounts like that of Kris Newby, author and science journalist, who told Corporate Crime Reporter in 2024 about a conversation with a former CIA operative who claimed he had 'dropped infected ticks on Cuban sugar cane workers in 1962.' Newby, who has extensively researched the origins of Lyme disease, said the man admitted the goal was to cripple Cuba's economy by targeting its most lucrative crop—sugar. Newby said she later verified aspects of the man's story, tracing it back to Operation Mongoose. The tactic, she explained, aimed to weaken the Cuban labor force and induce economic collapse, consistent with broader U.S. objectives in the region. Newby wrote the 2020 non-fiction Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons. These new documents and testimonies suggest that U.S. intelligence agencies had the means to execute a biological attack, as well as to control the media coverage around it. As DX reported, the Army previously used fabricated or exaggerated outbreaks to shape international perception and discourage engagement with Cuba. The covert planting of diseases—or even rumors of diseases—was part of a larger strategy of media manipulation and subversion. Such operations were conducted in a geopolitical context marked by Cold War paranoia, heightened by the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Fidel Castro's growing ties with the Soviet Union led U.S. intelligence officials to view Cuba not just as a local threat but as a potential launching point for communist influence throughout Latin America, DX reported. A 2017 CBS report on a prior batch of JFK files revealed that the CIA had even considered staging bombings in Miami to justify retaliation against Cuba. The declassified materials documented deliberations over creating a wave of staged terrorist attacks to justify military action. In the years since these operations were conceived, U.S. policy ostensibly moved away from biological weapons. On November 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon formally renounced the use of biological warfare, ordering the end of all offensive biological research. Fort Detrick, once an apparent nerve center of such experimentation, allegedly shifted to focus solely on defensive research and diagnostics. The Mongoose meeting minutes were obtained by The Dallas Express in the outlet's ongoing processing of the approximately 80,000 files related to the assassination of President John F Kennedy that were declassified by the Trump administration earlier this spring.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Spokane refugee communities search for path forward after Supreme Court decision allows parole status to be stripped
May 30—It's not clear how many refugees in the Spokane area will now lose their legal status to be in the U.S. following a decision Friday by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow President Donald Trump to end parole for roughly 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. The news is devastating for those who had been fighting for them locally. "This is just genocide. It's like sending somebody to death," said Rev. Luc Jasmin Jr., the founder of Jasmin Ministries, a multicultural church serving the Haitian and African community in Spokane. More than 500,000 refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who passed a background check and had a sponsor in the United States had been allowed to enter the country and request parole under the Biden-era program. In March, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem issued a decision to end the parole of a half-million refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela admitted to the U.S. under the special parole program in keeping with an executive order Trump issued shortly after his inauguration in January. On the campaign trail, Trump also explicitly and broadly derided many of these communities, including baseless claims that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio. On Friday, the Supreme Court stopped an injunction from a lower court that had temporarily barred the federal government from categorically ending the parole status of these refugees, allowing the White House to strip their legal status while legal challenges continue. "Today, the American people landed a legal victory to terminate parole for more than 530,000 illegal aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) who were released into the country by the Biden Administration," the Department of Homeland Security wrote on the social media platform X. "Ending the CHNV parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First." Mark Finney, director of Spokane-based refugee aid organization Thrive International, called the federal government's labeling of these refugees as "illegal aliens" ironic, given that it was the Trump administration itself that was stripping them of their legal status. "Ostensibly, this is about improving our national security and legal systems, so why are they putting more emphasis on stripping legal status away from productive members of society who are working jobs and contributing and paying taxes, rather than fixing the system with millions of undocumented folks living in the shadows?" Finney said. "It is sad, ironic and frustrating that the current administration is so focused on stripping legal status away and creating a much larger undocumented community than we already have," he added. Katia Jasmin, Luc's sister and director of Creole Resources, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the Haitian community in Spokane, estimated around 200 Haitians in the Spokane area now face losing their legal status and ability to work. "Some of them work for Amazon, and Amazon has already stopped them from working," Katia said. "They now cannot pay for their housing; they are scared, they are stressed. There's fear everywhere." She doesn't understand why her community is being targeted. "I really want to meet with the president, to ask him why he is targeting us," she added. "Why Haitians? People that know us in Spokane, we don't bother people, we work — I don't know why they targeted us. If we're doing something wrong, I wouldn't mind them deporting us, but we don't bother people." Luc estimates around 10% to 15% of his congregation have simply stopped attending since March in fear of being deported. "Haitians are not here because they want to," Luc said. "They are here because they're trying to escape from the situation back home that is dangerous." Christi Armstrong, director of the Spokane branch of refugee resettlement organization World Relief, called the Trump administration's categorical targeting of refugees from these communities "disturbing." "As a human being, I think of the people who have left everything, left all of their worldly goods, left jobs, oftentimes family and friends — what are they going back to?" Armstrong said. "How are they going to have a life in a place where they fled from because they feared for their lives?" Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said her office has begun reaching out to affected communities in the city to try to better understand what it can do to "help them have a safe path forward." "It is undeniable that people in Spokane — we don't know how many — who came here legally under a humanitarian program, are now experiencing anxiety and needless suffering as a result of the administration's order, the Supreme Court ruling and the failure of Congress to pass sensible and human immigration policy," Brown said in a statement. It's not clear, however, what further steps can be taken. "We don't know who to turn to and what to do with it," Luc said. "We just pray."
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
State Ethics Commission reaches settlement with Cuba mayor to resolve misconduct claim
May 30—SANTA FE — The State Ethics Commission has entered into a settlement agreement with a northern New Mexico mayor accused of benefitting from a directive that required village-owned vehicles to be refueled at a gas station he owns. The settlement agreement between the commission and Cuba Mayor Denny Herrera entered into this week avoids potential legal action by resolving all claims in the dispute. While not acknowledging any wrongdoing, Herrera agreed to pay $2,500 to the state and an additional $1,000 to the village of Cuba. After an investigation prompted by an online complaint, the Ethics Commission found reason to believe Herrera improperly benefited from a village directive that required employees to only use the convenience store he owns to refuel their government vehicles. The state Governmental Conduct Act specifically prohibits public officers from selling, or offering to sell, goods or services through businesses they own to employees under their supervision. While that law provides for both criminal and civil penalties, the State Ethics Commission does not have the authority to file criminal charges, said the commission's deputy director Amelia Bierle. Cases in which such charges could be filed are typically referred to district attorneys or Attorney General Raúl Torrez's office for review, she added. As part of the settlement agreement, Herrera informed Cuba in writing about his ownership of the gas station. He also clarified that village employees can gas up their work cars at any establishment that accepts special government debit cards. The settlement agreement did not specify how many such gas stations are located in Cuba, which had a population of 628 people as of 2020, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Herrera became Cuba's mayor after winning a three-way race in March 2022 with more than two-thirds of the 234 votes cast. He could not immediately be reached for comment Friday, and his attorney in the settlement agreement, Tom Hnasko, said he was not available to discuss its terms.
