Cuban American congress members stay silent on TPS, immigrant detention

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Miami-Dade Dems launch billboard campaign

The smug mugs of the four Miami-Dade Cuban American Republicans in Washington, D.C., who have sat silently by as the Donald Trump administration rolls back protections afforded to refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua, are now featured on a billboard seen from the busy Palmetto Expressway with the word “Traitors” next to them.

Last week, the Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus launched a billboard campaign taking aim at the “Gang of Four” — Sen. Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, and Congress Members Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar, who last week had the audacity to take credit and thank the Trump administration for a last minute reprieve to Venezuelans that is actually being appealed by the Trump ministration. They have done nothing while the Donald Trump administration moves to massively deport immigrants, even those with legal status, including more than half a million who had temporary protected status, a legal status that was taken from them in the middle of the night.

They are traitors “to immigrants, to Miami-Dade, to the American Dream,” the billboard says.

The first billboard has gone up on Palmetto Expressway between Doral and Hialeah, two of the cities that are most impacted by the reversal of temporary protected status, which gave legal status to more than half a million immigrants in the U.S. Read that again: The federal government made legal immigrants suddenly illegal in order to boot them out of the country.

“Marco Rubio, María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez and Mario Díaz-Balart have turned their backs on us,” Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus President Abel S. Delgado, a Cuban-American, said in a statement. “Rather than standing up for our families, they’ve stood silently while immigrant communities are targeted, detained, and deported.

“They’ve forgotten where they come from — but we haven’t,” Delgado said, promising more would come.

Read related: Maria Elvira Salazar takes credit for judge extending TPS for Venezuelans

Meanwhile, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who is not Cuban but knows how to represent her constituency, has written to Department of Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem to request a tour the Krome Processing Center, an immigration detention facility on Krome Avenue, where immigrants are being held in what many have described as overcrowded, unsafe and inhumane conditions.

“I’m deeply worried about reports of overcrowding and dangerous conditions at the federal Krome Processing Center. We must keep our communities safe while also acting with compassion and human concern,” Levine Cava wrote on her social media, posting the letter she wrote, in which she says that some of the immigrants “now being held in federal facilities, detained indefinitely without a clear process, include green card holders and long-standing members of our community who were contributing to our economy, supporting their families and paying taxes.”

Detainees are seen sleeping on the floor next to each other or in chairs in a viral video that was taken, obviously under cover, by a Mexican detainee near tears and provided to NBC6 Miami. Some detainees have had to sleep outside. They have reportedly not been allowed to communicate with loved ones or legal representation regularly. Some family members of detainees say they are not given enough food or even water. In February, a Ukranian immigrant died at a nearby hospital after getting sick at Krome.

“The increase in detainees being sent to the Krome Processing Center has caused conditions to deteriorate, creating an unsafe and inhumane detention environment,” Levine Cava wrote in the April 3 letter. “Allegations of substandard conditions include inadequate access to water and food, unsanitary confinement, medical neglect and abuse such as prolonged shackling.”

No wonder Marquito doesn’t want to go there. And where are Gimenez and Salazar? Ladra sent an inquiry by email to two of the Gimenez communication staffers asking if the congressman had requested a tour. Crickets.

Instead, on Tuesday, Gimenez held a House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security hearing to assess the security of U.S. travel systems in preparation for high-profile international events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and proclaimed his support for President Donald Trump’s recent Executive Order creating a White House Task Force focused on the 2026 World Cup.

Seems important.

Gimenez and the other three Cuban-American Republicans are also notably absent in a letter sent Tuesday to Noem, signed by 49 congress members who say the closure of several oversight offices last month “raises serious questions about DHS’s transparency and compliance with the law,” according to a story in The Miami Herald. The cancelled guardrails include the investigation of and response to alleged human rights violations in immigration detention centers.

Seems convenient.

Read related: SOS Venezuela: A trendy 2014 Florida campaign theme

Ladra still remembers when Rubio very heavily courted the Venezuelan vote, posing for a photo opp with the country’s flag and then Gov. Rick Scott — who has also been silent — and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera at El Arepazo 2 in Doral. They were joining the community’s protest of the Venezuelan government’s crackdown on demonstrators and asking for U.S. sanctions.

Bet Rubio won’t go order an arepa there today.

“This ‘Gang of Four’ is lying and betraying a community that trusted them—people who fled tyranny seeking freedom,” said María Corina Vegas, a board member of the Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus. “As a Venezuelan American who watched my country fall into dictatorship, I see the warning signs. Their complicity is shameful. We will make sure everyone knows exactly the traitors they are.”

The billboard campaign, Delgado said, is the first step in a sustained effort to hold these officials accountable and engage the Miami-Dade community to fight back against anti-immigrant cruelty and political betrayal.

“We will not be quiet. We will not let them hide behind pretend patriotic speeches while our families are ripped apart,” he said. “These billboards are just the beginning.”

  Carlos Gimenez, immigration, Marco Rubio, Maria Elvira Salazar