US Expands Visa Restrictions on Cubans Linked to Labor Export Program

Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a joint news conference in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on Feb. 6, 2025. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via Reuters

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Feb. 25 announced that the United States has expanded its visa restrictions to include exporters of Cuban labor, particularly medical missions abroad.

Rubio said in a statement that the restrictions target individuals and their immediate family members believed to be responsible for the labor export programs, which he said “enrich the Cuban regime.”

He added that Cuba’s overseas medical missions “deprive ordinary Cubans of the medical care they desperately need in their home country.”

Cuba ultimately profits from forced labor, according to Rubio. By sending those workers around the world, Cuba’s health service generates major export earnings and ultimately leaves Cubans at home without care. Such abusive practices, Rubio said, have been well-documented.

The United States has already imposed restrictions on several people, including some Venezuelans, under its expanded policy.

Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, criticized the latest U.S. restrictions.

“Once again, Marco Rubio puts his personal agenda before the U.S. interests,” Rodriguez wrote in a statement on X. “The suspension of visas associated to Cuba’s international medical cooperation is the seventh unjustified aggressive measure against our population within a month.”

The foreign minister further accused Rubio, a Cuban-American, of working to benefit special interests at the expense of American taxpayers. He did not name those special interests.

Cuba has long denied accusations about its medical missions. Since the 1959 revolution, the island nation has dispatched an “army of white coats” to help with disease outbreaks around the world, including Ebola in West Africa. But the United States has accused Cuba in recent decades of exporting doctors on more routine missions in exchange for cash or goods as the nation suffered a deep economic crisis.

Meanwhile, Rubio said the United States will continue to hold the Cuban regime accountable for oppressing its people.

“The United States is committed to countering forced labor practices around the globe. To do so, we must promote accountability not just for Cuban officials responsible for these policies, but also those complicit in the exploitation and forced labor of Cuban workers,” he said.

The new visa decision marks the latest significant escalation in U.S. policy toward Cuba since Trump took office.

The two nations have had tense relations since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, when Fidel Castro  overthrew a U.S.-backed government, and soon established a communist dictatorship 90 miles off the Florida coast. The Obama administration tried to normalize relations with Cuba, but the first Trump administration reversed course and relabeled Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism. The Biden administration eased some restrictions amid Cuba’s worsening humanitarian crisis and a wave of emigration to the United States.

From NTD News