Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio has rejected the upcoming visit to the United States by a delegation of the Cuban Border Guards, a common practice in his time, but which has fallen into disuse.
The Biden administration has decided to resume contacts in the framework of the last bilateral meetings taking into account the increase in rafters in the Straits of Florida. last year there was a similar meeting, but in Havana.
Rubio believes that this week’s meetings, which will take place at the Coast Guard’s national headquarters in Washington DC and at the military port of Wilmington, North Carolina, should not take place because the Border Guards belong to the Ministry of the Interior.
In a letter sent to Biden, Rubio argues: “the regime’s Border Guards are not only subordinate to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior, which appears on the list of Restricted Entities and Sub-Entities Associated with Cuba, but it is also very likely that the delegation includes members of the intelligence agencies from Cuba. This is reprehensible and sends a terrible message to Americans and the world. I demand that you immediately cancel this visit and provide a clear explanation of why you are sharing our nation’s security protocols with one of our country’s oldest foreign adversaries.”
Cuban Border Guard and US Coast Guard hold technical meeting in Havana
In his view, “our ocean defenses and maritime domain are our nation’s greatest national security asset, separating the United States from most of our adversaries by thousands of miles. However, in the case of Cuba, Americans live only 90 miles from the shores of this vile communist dictatorship allied with foreign powers that seek to undermine our country. For Floridians, the United States Coast Guard is the first line of defense against threats to our South.”
“Extending an invitation to Cuban intelligence agents to sensitive national security facilities and sharing with them our nation’s coastal and maritime security protocols is an egregious dereliction of duty and betrays one of the fundamental principles of the oath that [Biden] has done: protect America from foreign enemies. He must cancel this visit immediately and explain to the American people how this was allowed to happen under his watch,” he stressed.
This Monday the White House did not want to reveal what day the visit begins and how long it lasts. Rubio said Congress was notified by the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. A spokesman told the miami herald : “we have nothing to confirm at this time”.
Cooperation between the US and Cuban Coast Guards has historically been one of the most successful forms of communication. In the early 1980s, after the Mariel crisis, the Americans opened an office in what was then the Interests Office with a delegate and established a direct telephone line between the two institutions.
This made it possible to solve dozens of cases of recovery of ships in danger, the common pursuit of drug trafficking and the rescue of shipwrecked people adrift in the Strait. In the last two years, the Coast Guard has been very active in the return of rafters.
On the other hand, this weekend 22 rafters arrived at the Dry Tortugas National Park, west of Key West.
The park it is closed after some 300 rafters arrived at the beginning of January. They were taken to Key West and Miami before being returned to the island.
