Bipartisan group calls for visa revocations over Cuban medical brigade program

A bipartisan House group is introducing a resolution Thursday calling on the federal government to pull U.S. visas granted to third-country officials who have contracted the services of Cuban medical brigades.

The resolution, led by House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.), follows the State Department’s June Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, in which the United States formally accused Cuba of profiting from forced labor through its international medical assistance program.

“Cuba has been a cautionary tale against communism for over seventy years. From state sponsorship of terrorism to gross human rights violations, the Castro and Díaz-Canel regimes represent everything the United States should stand against,” Green told The Hill, referring to former Cuban President Fidel Castro and the nation’s current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

“Our resolution is a call on Congress to condemn the regime’s human trafficking of medical personnel around the world and hold the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) accountable for using millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to further this human trafficking operation.”

Cuba’s medical brigade program has garnered severe criticism from U.S. officials and a slew of human rights organizations, but officials and medical professionals in some beneficiary countries have praised it.

On paper, the brigade program is Cuba’s top foreign aid asset — the island nation exports medical services at cheap rates to places otherwise underserved or entirely lacking medical services, drawing on the island’s comparatively advanced medical system.

“Cuba’s commitment with international medical cooperation is firm and immovable, so long as the sovereign governments of the countries who benefit continue to claim that help,” said Cuban Foreign Affairs Vice Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío.

But what Cuba and some receptor countries call aid, U.S. officials call exploitation, and some medical professionals who have defected from the brigades say they were paid a tiny fraction of the amount charged by Cuba to their hosts.

“The Cuban regime’s aim isn’t altruism, but profit. Cuban doctors receive only a small fraction of their earnings, and only when they return to Cuba. It’s time to give Cuban healthcare workers the dignity and respect they deserve. One way we can do this is by revoking visa authorities for foreign organization officials who participate in Cuba’s human trafficking of medical personnel. This resolution calls on President Joe Biden to do just that,” said Green.

In addition to the TIP, State Department officials delivered a second report to Congress in June, detailing payments from 74 countries to Cuba for medical services.

That report was mandated by the $1.2 trillion spending bill signed by President Biden in March, which also ordered third-country sanctions for officials who contracted those services.

But the State Department did not single out specific third-country officials in its report, arguing that, because of differing and complex payment schemes in each country, it was impossible to assess whether those officials had directly engaged in human trafficking.

Cuban brigades have been deployed, under different circumstances, to a wide range of countries.

The State Department’s list of 74 receptors included NATO allies like the United Kingdom or Italy — countries that aggressively enforce their labor laws — as well as a wide range of countries with either limited capacity or willingness to provide oversight over foreign workers.

Some U.S. officials privately recognize that few alternatives exist to provide medical services in some areas where Cuban brigades operate, particularly smaller countries in the Caribbean — a reality often highlighted by Cuban officials.

“The criticisms from anti-Cuban politicians in the United States and the threats against sovereign governments are incapable of breaking Cuba’s determination. They’re also incapable of resolving the health issues affecting the most vulnerable communities in those countries, nor of guaranteeing health services like Cuba offers,” said Fernández de Cossío.

“Access to health services is a human right and those politicians commit a crime by trying to impede it.”

But the resolution specifically calls on the Biden administration to pull visas from PAHO officials, as well as officials from Brazil, Mexico and Honduras, larger countries that have historically used their relations with Cuba as a political statement of independence from the United States.

Those officials could include Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, due to take office on Oct. 1, who as mayor of Mexico City publicly contracted Cuban medical brigade services.

“The Cuban Medical Missions are a sinister human trafficking scheme and form of modern slavery. Socialist leaders like [President] Xiomara Castro in Honduras who exploit the labor of Cuban doctors should face the consequences,” said Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), one of the resolution’s co-sponsors.

Reps. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) also sponsored the resolution.