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Investigation: Cuban Refugees Abusing, Funneling US Welfare to Cuba

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Many Cuban refugees are abusing the American welfare system, with some even living off the generosity of the U.S. taxpayer in their native Cuba, according to an investigation by the Florida Sun Sentinel.

According to the Sentinel, Cuban refugees to the U.S. have largely been presumed to be fleeing persecution and, like all refugees, have thus been granted immediate access to public assistance. Instead of using those benefits as intended — in order to help them get a foothold in the U.S. — many have using American welfare dollars to finance their lives in Cuba, despite explicit prohibitions on using U.S. welfare abroad, the report finds.

Since 2003 more than 329,000 Cubans, eligible for the entire menu of welfare programs in the U.S., have arrived in Florida. The Sentinel’s report reveals Cubans represent 9 out of 10 foreign-born people receiving refugee services in the Sunshine State.

Florida residents, immigrants and officials had similar stories of rampant welfare abuse among Cuban refugees for the the Sentinel.

Miguel Veloso, a barber living Hialeah, Florida who has been in the U.S. for three years, described how recent Cuban refugees on welfare will spend months at a time in Cuba, returning before their welfare benefits expire. (Read more from “Investigation: Cuban Refugees Abusing, Funneling US Welfare to Cuba” HERE)

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Castro Absolves Obama of Fault for U.S.’ ‘Imperialist Aggression’

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raul castro summit panamaBy Fox News Latino. Cuban President Raul Castro recounted the history of U.S. “imperialist aggression” in Latin America in an address here Saturday at the 7th Summit of the Americas, although he absolved U.S. head of state Barack Obama of responsibility for those past actions.

Castro, whose country was invited to the gathering for the first time this year, received an ovation when he began his speech by saying the “time had come for him to speak here” on Communist-ruled Cuba’s behalf.

He referred to the United States’ “wars, conquests and interventions” in the region, saying through an interpreter that the country has been a “hegemonic force that plundered territories throughout the Americas.”

Castro recalled that the U.S. Congress authorized military intervention in Cuba in the late 19th century and that led to the establishment of a military base in Guantanamo that still “occupies our territory.”

In the 20th century, the United States carried out a series of “interventions to overthrow democratic governments” in Latin America, where “dictators were installed in 20 countries, 12 of them simultaneously.” (Read more from “Castro Absolves Obama of Fault for U.S.’ ‘Imperialist Aggression'” HERE)

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Floridians Question Special Treatment Afforded Cuban Immigrants

By Sally Kestin, Megan O’Matz and John Maine. More Floridians than not support ending special immigration privileges for Cubans, though a considerable number are unsure of their position on the complex U.S. policy, according to a new Sun Sentinel poll.

Thirty-seven percent favor ending the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, which gives Cubans preferential treatment over other immigrants, while 27 percent want to keep it. One-third were unsure.

The poll found even less support for the “wet foot/dry foot” policy granting entry to Cubans who make it to land while returning those intercepted at sea. Nearly 46 percent said that policy should end while 27 percent favor continuing it.

The Obama administration has said it has no plans to change Cuban immigration policy, but the poll results reflect public sentiment against it in the state with the largest Cuban population in the country.

“It seems like a strong vote of no confidence in the status quo,” said Marc R. Rosenblum, an immigration expert at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. “If this policy loses support in Florida, it’s hard to see where there’s going to be strong demand to maintain [it].” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Cuba Protests Make Waves at Panama Summit

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Photo Credit: USA Today

Photo Credit: USA Today

By Rick Jervis. Cuba’s first-ever inclusion into the Summit of the Americas was expected be to the headline-grabbing news at the two-day gathering here that starts Friday.

So far, it’s delivered.

There have been fisticuffs between rival Cuban protesters, an angered Cuban delegation over credentials and reports of the killer of Cuban icon Che Guevara mingling with opposition leaders outside the meetings.

And that’s all before President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro have even set foot in this tropical city.

In the most talked-about incident, a group of anti-Castro Cuban demonstrators on Wednesday planned to lay flowers at a bust of Cuban patriarch José Martí near the Cuban embassy here when they were confronted by a group of pro-Castro activists. (Read more from “Cuba Protests Make Waves at Panama Summit” HERE)

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Historic Encounter with Cuba’s Castro Awaits Obama in Panama

By Josh Lederman. Turning the page on a half-century of hostility, President Barack Obama signaled Thursday he will soon remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, boosting hopes for improved ties as he prepared for a historic encounter with Cuban President Raul Castro.

Hours before his arrival in Panama for a regional summit, Obama said the U.S. State Department had finished its review of Cuba’s presence on the list, a stain on the island nation’s pride and a major stumbling block for efforts to mend U.S.-Cuba ties. A top senator confirmed that the agency had recommended removing Cuba from the list, all but ensuring action by the president within days.

“We don’t want to be imprisoned by the past,” Obama said during a visit to Kingston, Jamaica. “When something doesn’t work for 50 years, you don’t just keep on doing it. You try something new.”

With his optimistic assessment, Obama sought to set the tone for the U.S. and Cuba to come closer to closing the book on more than a half-century of estrangement, when he and Castro come face to face at the Summit of the Americas. Obama arrived Thursday evening in Panama City.

The highly anticipated interaction with Castro will test the power of personal diplomacy as the two leaders attempt to move past the sticking points that have interfered with their attempt to relaunch diplomatic relations. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Historic Poll: Obama Is Nearly Twice as Popular in Cuba as He Is in the U.S.

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ObamaBarack Obama is a pretty popular guy in Cuba these days. So much so that nearly nine out of 10 Cubans hope he’ll be the first U.S. president to visit their island since Calvin Coolidge did in 1928.

A new Bendixen & Amandi Poll for Univision Noticias – Fusion in collaboration with The Washington Post shows that 89 percent of Cubans think the U.S. leader should swing by for a visit now that the two countries are trying to make nice. Obama also enjoys an 80 percent favorability rating on the communist-led island. The poll suggests that Obama is nearly twice as popular in Cuba as he is in the United States. Back home, where the U.S. president’s favorability rating is around 47 percent — the same as President Castro’s in Cuba.

According to the poll, an independent survey of 1,200 Cubans living across the island, 34 percent of Cubans have a “very positive” opinion of Obama, while 46 percent say they have a “somewhat positive” opinion of the U.S. president. That puts Obama’s overall favorability rating well above that of Fidel Castro, whose “very positives” and “somewhat positives” add up to 44 percent. Cuban President Raul Castro’s favorability rating is at 47 percent, nudging him slightly ahead of his older brother in the popularity category, according to the survey results.

The door-to-door poll, considered the most comprehensive and largest independent survey in Cuba in more than 50 years, was conducted by a team of local Cuban interviewers led by Miami-based research firm Bendixen & Amandi. The poll was carried out without the authorization of the Cuban government between March 17-27 in all 13 provinces of the island, including the capital city of Havana. The data offers a unique insight into public opinion on an island where reliable polling is notoriously difficult and where 75 percent of Cubans claim they have to be careful what they say in public. The opinion poll claims a margin of error of 2.8 percent, with a 95 percent confidence level. (Read more from “Historic Poll: Obama Is Nearly Twice as Popular in Cuba as He Is in the U.S.” HERE)

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Obama Moving Fast to Take Cuba off Terrorism Sponsor List

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Man stands near national flags of U.S. and Cuba on balcony of a hotel being used by first U.S. congressional delegation to Cuba since change of policy announced by U.S. President Obama, in HavanaPresident Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday to act quickly once he receives a State Department recommendation on whether to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring countries, a remaining obstacle to the restoration of relations between Washington and Havana.

With just days to go before a hemispheric summit in Panama where Obama will come face-to-face with Cuban President Raul Castro, he offered no clear sign of how he was leaning or the timeframe for his decision. He ordered the review immediately after announcing a diplomatic breakthrough with Havana on Dec. 17.

Obama, in a Reuters interview in early March, said he hoped the United States would be able to open an embassy in Cuba by the time of the April 10-11 Summit of the Americas, and U.S. officials have since said the review was being expedited.

But the lack of a decision so far on taking Cuba off the terrorism blacklist – something Havana has steadfastly demanded – has raised strong doubts about whether the review will be finished in time to make further strides toward normalization before the summit.

“As soon as I get a recommendation, I’ll be in a position to act on it,” Obama said in an interview with National Public Radio. (Read more from “Obama Says Would Move Fast to Take Cuba off Terrorism Sponsor List” HERE)

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New Epidemic of HIV in Cuba is Twice as Aggressive as Average Virus

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By Payton Guion. Researchers are worried after discovering a new strain of HIV in Cuba that progresses to AIDS twice as fast as the average strain of the disease, leaving those infected with a preciously shorter window in which to seek treatment.

The strain – which is actually a mix of three subtypes of human immunodeficiency virus – can progress to AIDS within three years if left untreated, according to reports. The average HIV strain advances to AIDS in six to 10 years.

Mutated HIV viruses are more difficult to diagnose and the rapid nature of the new Cuban strain make it difficult to treat those with HIV before it is too late. Researchers have identified more than 60 strains of HIV type 1 because of mutations. (Read more about the HIV in Cuba being twice as aggressive as the average virus HERE)

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Fast Acting HIV Strain in Cuba Troubles Aids Researchers

By Daniel Chang and Nora Gamez Torres. A strain of HIV that progresses to full-blown AIDS within three years if left untreated has become “epidemic” among newly infected patients in Cuba who reported having unprotected sex with multiple partners, according to a study published last week by international researchers working with patients and doctors in the Caribbean island nation.

The strain of human immunodeficiency virus — a combination of three subtypes of the virus — progresses so fast that researchers at Belgium’s Catholic University of Leuven said they worry patients infected with the mutated virus may not seek antiretroviral therapy until it’s too late.

The finding, published in the medical journal EBioMedicine, raises concerns among U.S. AIDS researchers who worry that mutated HIV viruses are more difficult to diagnose, might eventually become resistant to therapy and could challenge efforts to develop a vaccine.

Hector Bolivar, a physician and infectious-disease specialist with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said the HIV research community has long known about the virus’ capacity to mutate and create new versions.

More than 60 strains of HIV type 1 exist in the world because of mutations. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Reuters: Cuba Releases 53 Prisoners

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Plenty of us had our doubts as to if it would actually happen, including yours truly. But if the breaking news from Reuters pans out, Raul Castro has carried through and released the full crop of 53 political prisoners under discussion in the ongoing American rapprochement with Cuba.

Cuba has released all 53 prisoners it had promised to free, senior U.S. officials said, a major step toward détente with Washington . . .

You’re not off base at all if you would rather wait until Congress has been briefed and we get this from multiple sources in DC. Getting mixed messages (or outright lies) out of Havana would be nothing new. But assuming this proves true, it shouldn’t be all that surprising. Cuba has a lot on the line in this deal as we’ve discussed here at length. The benefits to Castro and the communist party far outweigh anything we’ll see out of this deal, and if Raul had bailed out on one of the very first agreements he made – particularly one which was so easy for him to make good on with no restrictions on his end – then opponents of this deal would be handed a huge new slug of ammunition to undermine it going forward.

One of the chief complaints I heard when the deal was first announced is still in play, of course. Just because these prisoners were released this week and government leaders had a chance for a photo op, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be picked up again and thrown in a cell next week on “new charges.” But there is at least hope that things won’t play out that way because of the aforementioned need on Castro’s part to keep painting the best face on all of this. (Of course, it still wouldn’t hurt for those 53 to hightail it out of the country by Friday if they have the chance.)

The next goal on the table is to reopen the embassy in Havana and, presumably, the one in Washington also. We heard some strong words out of the GOP when this was first announced, specifically along the lines of, “Good luck getting funding for that.” As the weeks have gone by, though, general public support for easing restrictions has been nearing the 70% mark and I don’t know how many members of Congress are going to want to buck those types of numbers when the total money involved will be essentially a rounding error in the budget. (Read more about “Cuba Releases 53 Prisoners” HERE)

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The Case of the Missing Castro: It’s Officially Been One Year Since the Cuban Dictator has been Seen Publicly

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By Fox News Latino. Today marks 365 days since the former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, 88, was last seen in public — he was a gaunt presence who delicately shuffled his way through an art gallery in Havana.

His absence has been especially conspicuous because so far has he made no comment about the announcement that the U.S. will restore diplomatic relations after more than 50 years of hostility.

Little information about Castro is officially disclosed, including where he lives. But his silence has once again started rumors about his fragile health.

Late on Thursday, various media outlets reported that Castro had died and that Cuban officials were to hold a press conference on his death after a report was published by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera about Castro’s demise.

Cuban officials vehemently denied both Castro’s death and the press conference and the Italian newspaper eventually retracted its story, but not before social media sites like Twitter exploded with rumors of the elder Castro’s death. (Read more about the missing Castro HERE)

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One Castro is Dead. Long Live the Other One.

By David Francis. Around 6:00 this morning, amid a flurry of news on the search for the Parisian gunmen, a curious rumor started to circulate on social media: Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro had died.

Initial reports appear to have come from the Diario Las Américas, an anti-Castro Cuban exile paper in Miami. Soon, German and British media picked up on the story. By 6:30 a.m., Twitter was filled rumors of the longtime Cuban leader’s demise.

This makes sense: News of Castro slipping into the great beyond is shovel-ready for Twitter. The 88-year-old Castro is known to be in poor health and is rarely seen in public, so his death wouldn’t be all that surprising. It also fits well into the current U.S.-Cuba thaw narrative. It would serve as a fitting end to the era of Cold War hostilities.

Perhaps most importantly, Castro’s passing would be sure to spark controversy. He remains a divisive figure for Cubans and Cuban exiles; his passing would ignite debate over whether he was Cuba’s savior or if he doomed the island nation to decades of poverty. What better place to hash this out than Twitter?

Unfortunately for the anti-Castro crowd, the rumor appears to be untrue. But it gained enough traction on social media that the Cuban government was forced to deny that it would hold a press conference to comment on reports. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Mystery Surrounding the Remaining Political Prisoners in Cuba

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Photo Credit: Sharon MollerusAn air of secrecy surrounds the fate of 53 political prisoners whom Cuba agreed to free in its historic deal with the United States last month, as Washington and Havana’s refusal to publicly identify the dissidents is fueling suspicion over Cuba’s intentions.

Almost three weeks after the agreement, neither dissidents on the island nor leaders in the Cuban exile community know how many have been let out or whether any of the prisoners they are aware of are among those scheduled to be freed.

Both the White House and the State Department refuse to publicly name the prisoners included on a list U.S. negotiators provided their Cuban counterparts amid negotiations to normalize relations, although officials said a prisoner release was not a precondition for renewing diplomatic ties. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that not everyone on the list has been set free yet, but it was always understood that they would be released “in stages.”

“Well, we know who’s on there. And the Cuban government knows who’s on there,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, expressing doubts that the list would be made public.

The lack of transparency is contributing to a growing sense of concern that Havana will not follow through on its promises. Francisco Hernandez, president of the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, cited the Cuban government’s track record of slipping in unwanted common criminals with legitimate political prisoners headed for refuge in other countries. (Read more about the political prisoners in Cuba HERE)

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In US-Cuba Prisoner Swap, Mystery Surrounds the Unnamed 53

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prisonerCuba’s most prominent dissidents say they have been kept in the dark by U.S. officials over a list of 53 political prisoners who will be released from jail as part of a deal to end decades of hostility between the United States and Cuba.

For years, dissident leaders have told the United States which opponents of Cuba’s communist government were being jailed or harassed, but they say they were not consulted when the list of prisoners to be freed was drawn up or even told who is on it.

The lack of information has stoked concern and frustration among the dissidents, who worry that the secret list is flawed and that genuine political prisoners who should be on it will be left to languish.

“We’re concerned because we don’t agree with the silence, because we have a right to know who they are. Who are they?” said Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White dissident group, which marches in Havana on Sundays to demand the release of prisoners.

“There are not just 53 political prisoners, there are more, and we are concerned that the U.S. list might have common criminals on it,” she told Reuters in Havana. (Read more on the US-Cuba prisoner swap HERE)