Sen. Rubio calls on Biden to cancel Cuban Border Guard visit to U.S. military installation

In a letter sent to President Biden, Sen. Marco Rubio denounced the administration's recent decision to invite Cuban Boarder Guard agents to a prominent U.S. Coast Guard installation in Washington, D.C. to tour its facilities.

Rubio demanded the administration cancel the meeting in a Feb. 24, 2023 letter,  emphatically stating that "extending an invitation to Cuban intelligence operatives into sensitive national security facilities in order to share with them our nation’s coastal and maritime security protocols is an egregious dereliction of duty that betrays one of the most fundamental tenets of the oath you have sworn, to protect America from foreign enemies."

The Florida based U.S. Senator further demanded, "you must cancel this visit immediately, and explain to the American people how this was allowed to happen on your watch".

To make his case, the Florida attorney turned legislator reminded the president that, "in 2021 the U.S. State Department re-designated Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism for its broken commitments to cooperate with U.S. counter-terrorism efforts." 

The letter also highlights Cuba's "continued support provided to the Maduro narco-regime in Venezuela, as well as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia.

"Both foreign terrorist organizations [that] carry out attacks against civilians and engage in drug trafficking. Trafficking that brings cocaine, fentanyl, and other drugs to our shores."

The Cuban Border Guard has historically been involved in violent confrontations with vessels seeking to leave the island.

In July 1994 world famous incident, the Cuban Border Guard intentionally sank the 13 de Marzo tugboat carrying 37 innocent refugees trying to escape to the United States, leaving no survivors.

"There is sufficient evidence to indicate that it was an official operation and that, if events occurred in the way described by several of the survivors, those who died as a result of the incident were victims of extrajudicial execution," said a report published by Amnesty International.

Of these hostile acts, the most recent was the Sept. 29, 2022 sinking of a boat near the town of Bahia Honda in the Pinar del Rio province, an incident which several people lost their lives.

In that incident, the survivors denounced that they were rammed by the Cuban regime's Boarder Guard boat.

One of the passengers, Diana Meizoso, who saw her two-year-old daughter die in the collision told Radio Televisión Martí: “They rammed the boat and broke it in half.”

Shortly after the incident, the International Justice Cuba Commission, led by Mexican jurist René Bolio, said it had analyzed  “the Bahía Honda massacre,” and described it as a tragedy that left “several innocent civilians were killed by Cuban dictatorship officials.”

“These crimes... committed by members of the system... are considered crimes against humanity, according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court," Bolio said.