What hypocrite Joe Garcia didn’t tell Cuban dissident he met

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He is one of the main proponents of lifting U.S. travel restrictions to Cuba, which critics say is one of the prime ways that Cuba gets the dollars it needs to hammer its opposition. While Garcia does not publicly denounce the embargo, he has said that some restrictions should be relaxed because they are “out of tone and time.” His positions may be better aimed at nicking the embargo a little at a time. Since taking office, Garcia has advocated for easing travel rules for Cuban diplomats who want to come to the U.S. to spread their propaganda and for U.S. testing of a diabetes drug developed by the regime’s medical branch.

Did he happen to mention those efforts to Ms. Pérez Aguilera?

That drug move was seen by exiles and some of the other Cuban-American congress members — who also met with the dissident Tuesday — as a cynical attempt to give the repressive Cuban government access to U.S. markets without having to make any democratic reforms.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami), said back then that his position marked the first time she can remember a Cuban-American member of Congress “supporting something that would be helpful to the regime.” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Miami), said his colleague wanted to help “a state sponsor of terror.” Both were also at the meeting with Perez Aguilar Tuesday.

And while most of Little Havana and Hialeah watched in horror and our local Republicans — including Sen. Marco Rubio — gasped when President Barack Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro last December, Garcia dismissed it as common courtesy. “Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake,” he said.

And sometimes the level of hypocrisy is just unbearable.

Did the Congressman forget to mention any of these positions of his in his chat with Ms. Pérez Aguilera?

Did he forget to tell her that — while she and her husband and 45 other dissidents and independent journalists were cracked down on last month by State Security agents that monitor their every move — the very same people who prop up the regime and provide them the financial support they need for their repressive machinery are supporting Garcia’s re-election?

Pérez Aguilera is a prominent human rights activist in her own right since 1999, when she joined the Pedro Luis Boitel National Civic Resistance Movement, an organization of family members of political prisoners who campaigned for the release of their loved ones.  She also founded the Rosa Parks Feminine Civil Rights Movement which advocates for greater respect for human rights and assistance for impoverished women, children, and the elderly.

And for her efforts, she has also been threatened, beaten and harassed at the hands of Cuban authorities.

In a short talk after meeting with the lawmakers, the Herald said Pérez Aguilera described the arrests and ransacking of their home by Cuban security agents earlier this year. “They even took our family pictures,” she told them.

Well, maybe Garcia can use his Cuban contacts to get those precious family photos back to her.

He knows people.

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  Congressional district 26, Joe Garcia