The new fears of Cubans in Florida: The Economist reports that as Miami’s Freedom Tower, better known as the “Ellis Island of the South,” gets unveiled next month following its $65 million facelift, the privileged status that Cuban immigrants have enjoyed since the Cold War is quickly slipping away. The author writes that for Cubans in South Florida, the Trump administration’s immigration policies are “arousing not only fear but also indignation, particularly as local leaders who had long defended Cuban migrants now stand idly by for fear of drawing Trumpian ire.” According to Cuban-American former Congressman Joe García, “all of a sudden, we’re just like Mexicans,” referring to the apparent loss of special immigration privileges Cuban immigrants once enjoyed. Miami-based immigration lawyer Wilfredo Allen, whose 16,000 clients are nearly all Cuban, said that 28 judges at Miami’s downtown immigrant court wade through a backlog of some 312,000 pending cases on a daily basis. “People are terrified of going to court hearings,” Allen said. “There’s no rhyme or reason as to how they handle these cases. It’s totally arbitrary.” https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2025/08/21/the-new-fears-of-cubans-in-florida

20-hour blackouts, garbage-lined streets: this is life under Cuba’s ‘war economy’: CNN en Español journalist Gonzalo Zegarra writes that prolonged blackouts in Cuba are severely hamstringing the recovery of the island’s economy, compounding issues related to the water supply, trash collection, public transportation, and food production, among others. Documenting a laundry list of external and internal factors contributing to Cuba’s profound economic recession, Zegarra writes that a stagnant productive sector, a severe foreign reserves shortage, and the reduced availability of subsidized food are contributing to a growing polycrisis on the island that authorities are increasingly acknowledging. This paralysis, Zegarra notes, has precipitated partial government responses that in turn create other issues, and combined with the Trump administration’s unwillingness to reconsider any of its sanctions against the island, have led to a unprecedented migratory exodus that has reduced the island’s population for a fourth consecutive year in 2024. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/08/22/americas/cuba-crisis-energy-economy-intl-latam

Vietnamese are helping Cuba with 38-cent donations. A lot of them.: New York Times Vietnam Bureau Chief Damien Cave writes that “a new crowdfunding campaign for Cuba led by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Red Cross Society has raised more than $13 million in the first week, far more than organizers had expected for the entire 2-month effort…attracting 1.7 million donations.” The campaign, intended to assuage hunger and runaway inflation on the island, appealed to many Vietnamese who remember how “Cuba supported Vietnam during the wars of the 1960s and ‘70s, building hospitals and sending doctors, sugar and cattle.” Cave argues that many Vietnamese have also had an “awkward realization” that the two countries’ roles have reversed because of choices made as the Cold War ended, referencing Vietnam’s pivot to free enterprise in the late-1980s and Cuba’s insistence on strict state control over the economy. Noting that the U.S. embargo has limited Cuba’s options for recovery, Cave writes that Vietnam has become even more determined to help, including through donations of rice and new joint ventures to produce the staple of Cubans’ diets on the island itself. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/world/asia/vietnam-cuba-fundraising.html

The embargo on Cuba doesn’t represent American values: Miami-born Cuban-American marine scientist Fernando Bretos, PhD, writes for the independent media outlet Belly of the Beast: “The embargo is fundamentally un-American. [Its] limitations stand in direct opposition to the values, principles and liberties that lie at the heart of what our nation is meant to represent.” Bretos, who has worked in Cuba for over 25 years on coral restoration and climate resilience in coastal communities, argues that, along with restricting remittances, increasing bureaucracy, and stunting business development, U.S. sanctions on Cuba have curtailed science diplomacy between the two countries. “The embargo restricts travel by scientists like me, limits the flow of supplies and technology for cutting-edge scientific research and prevents Cuban scientists from traveling to the U.S. for academic exchange and training,” Bretos says. https://www.bellyofthebeastcuba.com/embargo-on-cuba-doesnt-represent-american-values-traveling-to-cuba-does

Inflation has hurt Cubans’ pockets more than official figures suggest: Dr. Emily Morris, an economist at University College, London, writes in The Conversation that “official figures systematically understate the actual increase in prices faced by Cuban households.” In the article, Morris notes that “in 2021, for example, research estimated the inflation rate was anywhere between 174% and 700% – well above the government’s estimate (77.3%).” While inflation may be leveling off, with the official annual rate easing to 15% in June, rising prices “have put essential goods beyond the reach of most people who depend on state incomes,” Morris argues. She also contends that “constraint on economic growth imposed by US measures is real and severe,” writing that “every branch of the Cuban economy has been affected by US sanctions…and the lack of hard currency has, in turn, limited the scope for the investments and reforms needed for economic recovery.” https://theconversation.com/cuban-government-scrambling-to-deal-with-outrage-about-countrys-economic-crisis-261702

The Cuban billionaire behind the pro-immigrant billboards in Miami: El País reports that Cuban-born, Miami-based billionaire Mike Fernández has been anonymously funding a campaign against the Trump administration’s immigration agenda since April, paying for billboards on Miami highways calling out Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the three Cuban-American members of Congress from South Florida – Republicans Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez. The campaign, for which Fernandez says he’s willing to spend up to $30 million, calls the lawmakers “cowards” and “traitors” for abandoning immigrants through policies like mass deportations, quotas for daily arrests, the cancellation of temporary protections and humanitarian programs, and the use of immigration detention centers for individuals with no criminal record. “The direction that we’re going as a nation is totally opposite to what the Constitution says [and] to the way that Americans treated me as a child,” Fernández told El País. “I don’t object to many of the provisions of the Administration and their policies. What I do object to is the cruelty and the treatment of others as if they were animals.” https://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-08-05/the-cuban-billionaire-behind-the-pro-immigrant-billboards-in-miami-if-i-have-to-spend-30-million-in-this-fight-i-will-spend-it.html