Tourists on a Cayo Coco beach in December 2020. EFE EFE/Sipa USA

In a first such decision, a Miami federal jury has found that travel booking company Expedia Group ows $29.85 million to a Cuban-American family in damages for having promoted and sold bookings to Floridians at hotels in land confiscated by the Cuban government during the early days of Fidel Castro’s revolution. The case was filed by Mario Echevarría, one of the heirs of a Cuban family that claimed ownership of Cayo Coco, a small key off the northern coast of central Cuba, against Expedia and its affiliate sites Hotels.com and Orbitz under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. It is the first of such lawsuits to reach a jury trial.

The Helms-Burton Act gives U.S. nationals who hold a claim to property that the Cuban government confiscated without compensation the right to sue companies, American or foreign, who have profited or “trafficked” in such property. From 1996 to 2019, successive U.S. presidents had suspended the Helms-Burton provision, Title III, that provides that legal path. In 2019, President Donald Trump enacted that portion of the act during his first term.

The long pause and several other legal technicalities have complicated the attempts of dozens of U.S. companies and property heirs from prevailing in court. Several other prominent Helms-Burton lawsuits have been turned down on appeal or are headed to the Supreme Court after years of expensive litigation.

But a jury in Florida’s Southern District found last Friday that Expedia and its affiliates didn’t follow the law by promoting tourism to Cuba and by marketing and selling bookings for Cayo Coco’s all-inclusive hotels built in land confiscated from Echevarría’s family in 1960.

“This is a major victory not only for our client, but also for the broader community of Cuban-Americans whose property was wrongfully taken and has been exploited by U.S. companies in partnership with the Cuban communist dictatorship,” attorney Andrés Rivero said. “We are proud to have played a role in securing justice under a law that had never before been tested before a jury.”

The verdict comes six years after Echevarría first notified Expedia that the family was planning to sue in August 2019.

After a two-week trial, the jury found that Echevarría had a 12,5% ownership interest in Cayo Coco and awarded $9,950,000 in damages. The jury also decided to triple the amount the companies must pay because Expedia and its affiliates continued promoting hotels in Cayo Coco after being notified of the potential lawsuit. It is yet unclear if each company would have to pay $30 million separately, and the judge presiding over the case, Federico A. Moreno, has ordered further proceedings.

The travel booking companies have until July to challenge the verdict, Moreno wrote.

Santosh Aravind, a lawyer representing the travel booking companies, told the jury the firms had committed a “mistake,” not an intentional act of “trafficking,” and questioned Echevarría’s inheritance claims on Cayo Coco’s property, Law360 reported. But the jury was unpersuaded.

“We are disappointed in the jury’s verdict, which we do not believe was supported by the law or evidence.,” David Shank, a lawyer representing the companies, told the Miami Herald. “We believe the court was correct to decline immediate entry of judgment and look forward to the court’s consideration of the legal sufficiency of the evidence presented to the jury.”

Read more at: Miami Herald

The Bay of Pigs has left deep scars on the collective memory of both Cubans and Americans. For many Cuban exiles, this defeat symbolizes the lost opportunity to liberate their homeland and the pain of losing loved ones in the process.

The Cuban casualties were hundreds of wounded and 157 dead, whom Cubans remembers as eternal heroes of the homeland for their sacrifice.

The cultural and political impact persists. In Cuba, the victory over the invasion has been celebrated as a triumph of the revolution, while in the United States, it left a legacy of mistrust.

An April 17, 1961 map showing the locations of invading forces. Fidel Castro said one invasion force, apparently the main one, struck in southern part of Las Villas Province (1). Another force was reported ashore at the edge of southern Matanzas Province in Cochinas Bay area (2). Western Pinar Del Rio Province (3) was scene of another reported force. Washington exile forces said another force had landed at Baracoa (4), northeast of Santiago. NBC quoted a Cuban exile spokesman as saying invasion operations were moving ahead favorably in Matanza Province (5), the Santiago area (6), with parachutists dropped on the Isle of Pines (7).

In a scorching letter, Cuban American healthcare billionaire Mike Fernández is urging Cuban American Republican leaders from Miami to stand up to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and speak up or “make room for others who can.” “If you can’t find your voice at this moment, or tell the difference between one dictator and another, then perhaps it is time to make room for others who can and have a vision that you may lack,” Fernández told Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Miami U.S. Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez in an open letter. He sent a version of the letter to each of them individually on Monday.

View the Mike Fernandez Open Letter

In the letter, Fernández, a deep-pocketed Coral Gables political donor, said Trump has adopted “a posture of cruelty” towards immigrants and accused the four politicians of having betrayed the communities they represent by staying silent. “I know what it means to flee tyranny,” he said. “Like you, I carry that history in my bones and that pain in my heart. But like a growing number in our community, I have watched with dismay as the very values we once found sanctuary in are now being attacked by a previously unthinkable threat — the sitting President of the United States. “In the face of all of this, the silence from our own leaders — the sons and daughters of exiles — has become deafening,” he added. “That silence is not neutrality, nor ignorance, it is complicity and cowardice… Your silence has caused fear and real harm to many in our community, in your districts.”

Fernández, the chairman of MBF Healthcare Partners and a prolific political donor who has backed both Republican and Democratic candidates, said in the letter that he intends to ask others to join him in speaking out. He told the Miami Herald he is willing to spend his money on the effort. He has already paid for two full-page ads in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal blasting Trump’s actions and calling on a group of Republican senators to “turn back the tide of tyranny.”

Fernández, a former Republican turned independent, contributed small amounts to both Rubio´s and Salazar’s campaigns in the past. He poured millions into Jeb Bush’s failed presidential campaign in 2016 and was co-finance chairman of former Gov. Rick Scott’s 2014 re-election campaign. Fernández said he thought Cuban American elected leaders and members of the Cabinet like Rubio are afraid to disagree openly with Trump and that he may turn on them. “Our four representatives are just bending the knee to the presidency, because they’re afraid for themselves, they’re afraid for their job,” he told the Herald. “They’re going to be remembered for turning their back on their community. It’s time that we find somebody who fights for what is right, for American values, for this community.”

Only three months into his second tenure, Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown risks driving a wedge in South Florida, the home of some of the communities most affected so far by the new policies.

Last month, the administration revoked the legal status of about 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who entered the country through a parole program created by the Biden administration and told them to leave or face deportation. A federal has judge halted the administration for now. A similar decision to end Temporary Protected Status for 600,000 Venezuelans has also been put on hold by federal judges. Civil rights organizations are also fighting a decision to end TPS for about half a million Haitians. In recent years, Cuban Americans have turned into a solid Republican voting bloc and many Venezuelans in Doral have also enthusiastically embraced Trump’s MAGA movement. But some Republicans have been quietly signaling disapproval with some of the administration’s policies. Democrats sense an opening in Miami. The Miami Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus paid for a billboard on the Palmetto Expressway bashing as “traitors” to immigrants the same four Miami politicians singled out by Fernandez in his letter. Since January, the face of America has been changing rapidly from a country that welcomed immigrants to one where international students are deported because of their political opinions, Fernandez told the Herald. He said he fears the country will lose its economic competitive edge because of talent lost to the immigration crackdown.

He also fears the Trump administration’s rapid dismantling of the post-World War II international order will damage the United States’ standing in the world. In his letter, he said that cuts to foreign aid funding efforts to foster political change in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela amount to a “betrayal.” The State Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Spokespersons for Díaz-Balart and Giménez said the two had not received the letter. Salazar, who has been more vocal about immigration issues and is sponsoring an immigration reform bill, the Dignity Act, pushed back against Fernandez´s letter. “Who else in Congress has taken on BOTH parties to advocate for those who have no papers, no criminal record, but do the jobs others Americans don’t want to do? It’s been only me,” she said. “My whole time in Congress, I have worked across the aisle to fight for my Dignity Act, the only bipartisan immigration reform law in Congress that provides real solutions to our immigration crisis.” In interviews with Hispanic media, Salazar has said she had personally reached out to leaders of the Department of Homeland Security to intervene on behalf of some detained Cuban migrants and “educate” officials on the need to protect Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians fleeing from dictatorships and political turmoil.

“Cubans cannot be returned,” she said in an interview with local television station América TV. “What we need to get rid of is the Cuban regime… The temporary status protections should also be respected.” But she has avoided publicly clashing with the administration on immigration issues, blaming former President Joe Biden instead for the immigrants’ predicament in a posting on X that triggered a wave of criticism. In his letter, Fernández called it “hypocrisy” to revoke deportation protections to people fleeing dictatorships, “just as our families once did. “I’m just embarrassed and ashamed of how our own sons and daughters of immigrants have turned their back on this community,” Fernández told the Herald. “And they can talk all they want to, but actions are very clear to read.”

Source: Miami Herald

According to figures published by the US Department of Agriculture, February closed with such a significant increase that imports from the island totaled approximately $47,636,633, more than $20 million above the $27,204,788 recorded in February 2024 and also much higher than the $24,592,601 recorded in the same month in 2023.

Official US figures indicate that in February 2014 these purchases reached $44,080,044, although the following month they soared to $53,021,705.

According to the New York-based Cuba-US Economic and Trade Council, which promotes increased business with the island, the February 2025 shopping basket includes $856,836 worth of rice purchased in the northern nation; $1,067,383 worth of used vehicles; $46,700 worth of trucks; $969,546 worth of motorcycles; and $7,468 worth of solar cells.

Regarding automobiles, from January 2023, when the US issued licenses for vehicle exports to Cuba, until last February, buyers on the island have spent $76,475,523 on new and used gasoline and electric cars, as well as trucks, motorcycles, and scooters.

Also in the second month of this year, Havana continued its purchases of medical supplies and healthcare products from the US, spending $19,848 on them.

Cuba is now the 44th largest market globally by volume of US food and agricultural purchases.

Despite the embargo, all exports are authorized under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TSREEA) of 2000. Since Havana made its first purchases under these regulations in December 2021, it has spent more than $7,638,295,560 in the US.

However, both the ruling elite and its media continue to blame the hardships suffered by Cubans on Washington's embargo against Havana.

Source: Periodico Cubano