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.
Cuban American businessman and political donor Mike Fernández. Cuban American businessman and political donor Mike Fernández.
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 LetterIn 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.”
From left to right, U.S Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez at a change of command ceremony at the U.S. Southern Command on Nov. 7, 2024, in Doral.
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.”