A crowd of over 1,000 Cuban-Americans and supporters of the anti-communist cause rallied in front of the White House on Tuesday in support of President Donald Trump’s Cuba policies and urging him to take more stringent action to contain the malicious influence of the Castro regime.
The rally took place on the anniversary of the birthday of José Martí, Cuba’s most influential writer and freedom fighter, in 1853. It was convened by Miami-based commentator Alexander Otaola and featured the presence of several prominent members of the Cuban-American community of Florida. The congregants urged President Trump to adopt measures to restrict money flows to the communist regime and pressure the regime to release its hundreds, if not thousands, political prisoners, many facing torture and harrowing conditions in prison.
The rally-goers carried a large image of President Trump along with signs calling for freedom for their people and an end to the Cuban regime. Many of those attending expressed optimism for U.S.-Cuba relations in the next four years with Trump at the helm, who in his first term in office worked to isolate Cuba on the international stage and limit its ability to support fellow rogue regimes such as Venezuela, Iran, and Russia.
The positive expectations are a significant contrast from the frustration and lament in the Cuban-American community during President Joe Biden’s term in office, which ended with Biden removing Cuba from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. Raúl Castro’s communist regime is part of a large network of anti-American terrorist organizations including the jihadists of Hamas Hezbollah in addition to Western Hemisphere terrorists such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Trump returned Cuba to the state sponsors of terrorism list on his first day in office.
Those in attendance in Washington on Tuesday demanded, among other policies, that Trump declare Cuba a national security threat and designate the Cuban Communist Party a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), according to Telemundo.
“We are asking that they stop the remittances and wirings and all kinds of funding that can feed the repression and the tyrant,” Otaola was quoted as saying at the rally.
Others attending the event told the U.S.-based Cuban news outlet Martí Noticias that their message was one of support for the new administration but a reminder to prioritize the Western Hemisphere in foreign affairs.
“This concentration of Cubans here is to welcome them [the Trump administration], to tell them they are our allies, we have voted for you and we count on you, welcome” pastor Mario Félix Lleonart told Martí. “Now, we also want freedom for our country and we will achieve this.”
Cuban-Americans largely supported President Trump over his rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris, in the 2024 election. A poll by Florida International University (FIU) published shortly before the election found that almost 70 percent of Cuban-American voters in Miami-Dade County, home to the country’s largest population of Cuban descent, supported Trump.
Addressing the crowd, Miami-based actress Zajaris Fernández lamented the poor state of the country and the exile status that Cubans have experienced for over half a century.
“We are here because we want to have, achieve, and grow as human beings without having to give up on seeing the ones we love,” she explained, “without having to leave the place that saw us born without knowing when we will be able to return, without having to ask permission to enter where we belong.”
Fernández also condemned Cubans in the entertainment world who make money in the United States but do not advocate for the rights of Cubans at home – most prominent among them Hollywood A-lister Ana de Armas, who is reportedly dating the son of Cuba’s figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel.
“I’m here to represent all the artists that don’t have the balls to stand here, who come to this country to live and achieve what they never let us achieve or say,” she told the crowd to loud applause.
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Prominent among rallygoers were representatives of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), believed to be the largest dissident organization on the island. The communist regime has imprisoned its leader, José Daniel Ferrer, repeatedly since the repressive “Black Spring” of 2003, most recently for over three years between July 2021, when nationwide protests erupted against communism on the island, through mid-January. Ferrer reportedly called into the rally from Cuba to thank the attendees for their support for his cause.
Eliecer Góngora, an exiled UNPACU activist, traveled to Washington from Texas to attend the rally.
“We are asking the new administration for action, not words,” Góngora told Martí Noticias. “It is also a way to congratulate Donald Trump on his return and the new task that this friend of the Cuban people has, as well as former Senator Marco Rubio who is now secretary of state.”
In a gesture largely welcomed as signaling that the Cuban cause will be atop his list of foreign policy priorities as president, Trump chose then-Sen. Rubio to become the first Hispanic secretary of state in American history.
The presence of UNPACU at the rally followed Ferrer denouncing on Monday that the Cuban government, which freed him as part of a larger prisoner release during the final days of the Biden administration, had almost immediately begun to harass him again, issuing a frivolous court summons. Ferrer wrote on social media that he would refuse the summons, potentially exposing him to another arrest.
Hermanos y amigos, me acaban de citar para mañana ante un Juez de Ejecución de la tiranía. NO VOY A NINGÚN LADO!!! Si la intención es amenazarme con volver a la prisión, pierden su tiempo. Por la libertad y el bienestar de mi pueblo doy hasta la vida. No me asusta la prisión!!! pic.twitter.com/4mrVCd3AIA
— José Daniel Ferrer (@jdanielferrer) January 27, 2025
The Trump administration responded rapidly to the news, issuing a statement through the State Department’s Western Hemisphere bureau.
“Cuba’s dictatorship is once again targeting and persecuting the courageous pro-democracy leader [Ferrer], after the regime made a deal w/ the Catholic Church to ‘release’ political prisoners,” the statement read. “We are not fooled by their games and will not play them. The illegitimate regime is directly responsible & will be held accountable for its treatment of Ferrer and of all the political prisoners it continues to unjustly hold.”
