Díaz-Balart highlighted the seriousness of the case and celebrated that federal authorities are resuming a key episode in the search for justice for the victims.
MADRID, Spain. In interview with journalist Mario Pentón, The Republican congressman for Florida, Mario Díaz-Balart, addressed this Thursday the recent arrest in the United States of Luis Raúl González Pardo Rodríguez, a former Cuban military pilot linked to the 1996 operation against the organization Brothers to the Rescuein which four Cuban Americans were murdered in international waters.
Díaz-Balart, one of the legislators who most pushed for the case to reach the hands of federal authorities, framed the arrest within a political turn in Washington. He assured that this is part of an effort to reverse the soft line towards Havana. In his words, “this is another very important thing that the Trump administration is doing to reverse all the gifts, the advantages, the concessions that President Biden gave to the tyranny in Havana.”
He recalled that his office had alerted the previous government about González Pardo since September 2024, without receiving a response. He said there was enough information to act early, and that the defendant could face a severe sentence for falsifying federal documents.
“I sent a letter to President Biden and certain members of his administration with the information about this individual who had been let in, and they did nothing. They have arrested him and this individual is not going to be kicked out of the country. I believe he is going to spend years in United States prisons for his barbaric acts against the Cuban people and for lying in his documents, something that the Biden administration knew,” he said.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi already announced that González Pardo could receive up to 15 years in prison for that crime alone. However, Pentón raised one of the questions that most worries the Cuban community: whether additional charges could be filed related to the downing of the Hermanos al Rescate planes.
Díaz-Balart did not rule it out. “In the case of this individual, it is very possible that there will be a detailed investigation and that more charges will arise. The charges he already has are very serious, but there may be more. I am very happy that the security of this country is being taken seriously and that everything that President Biden and his advisors did is being reversed,” he said.
Concern about deportations and immigration review
On the other hand, the conversation also addressed the concern of Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans about the increase in detentions and deportations in the United States, especially among those who fled authoritarian regimes. Pentón mentioned the fear of communities that have escaped “from Castroism, from Chavismo and from the tyranny of Ortega.”
At this point, the congressman insisted on his position: “I have not changed my mind. One should not send people to certain countries like Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua for obvious reasons. I have always said that and I have not changed my mind.”
He also qualified his support for Trump’s immigration policies: “I do not agree with everything that President Trump’s administration does,” he said first, and then added: “I totally agree that the border had to be closed, take control of the drug cartels away and restore order.”
Díaz-Balart added that there is a bipartisan and constant effort to find a solution for immigrants who have been in the country for many years and who now face proceedings for minor crimes or immigration irregularities. “Decent people who have been here for many years and committed a crime deserve a trial. My colleagues (María Elvira) Salazar and (Carlos) Jiménez and I have had multiple conversations at the highest level in the White House and in the Department of Homeland Security to see if the administration agrees to create a program to analyze and review the people who entered,” he explained.
According to the legislator, the lack of an adequate review process at the southern border left thousands of immigrants in a vulnerable situation. “Many of these people are good, but they were not reviewed and they passed by those who had been waiting for years in the legal process. We are trying to create a review process so that they have the opportunity to stay, ask for asylum and adjust,” he said.
