A group of U.S. representatives issued a letter on Monday demanding U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken provide information explaining to Congress how Manuel Menéndez Castellanos, a former high-ranking member of the Cuban Communist Party, was granted a U.S. immigrant visa.
Menéndez Castellanos, who in the past served as a direct underling of late dictator Fidel Castro and held high-ranking regional Communist Party offices, arrived in the United States in August after receiving a U.S. migrant visa through a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program known as the “Cuban Family Reunification Parole” (CFRP).
The communist official, presently believed to reside in Florida, served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party in the Cuban south-central city of Cienfuegos. Cuban state media regularly featured Menéndez Castellanos in news articles spanning several decades — often referring to him as an “honored” guest at many Party events.
Martí Noticias, a U.S-based outlet focused on Cuba, reported on Monday that it obtained a copy of the letter signed by Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Tom McClintock (R-CA), Carlos Giménez (R-FL) and María Elvira Salazar (R-FL).
The letter gives Blinken a deadline of no later than 5 p.m. on September 23, 2024, to respond to their questions and provide Congress with detailed information on Menéndez Castellanos’ case, including a complete copy of his immigration file and an explanation of the “lapses in vetting that led to the Administration’s lack of awareness of Menéndez Castellanos’s affiliation with the Castro regime.”
The letter also criticizes the Biden-Harris administration’s “lax” approach to national security and “inexcusable” admission of Menéndez Castellanos in U.S. territory, pointing out that a simple five-minute internet search reveals Menéndez Castellanos’ extensive communist past.
The U.S. Congressmen also denounced the Biden-Harris’ administration’s “continued desire to placate Communist regimes and undermine America’s values and standing on the world stage.”
“Menéndez Castellanos’s entry into the United States raises serious questions about the Biden-Harris Administration’s application of federal immigration law and the vetting procedures used during the immigrant visa application process,” the letter read. “Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), an alien is inadmissible as an immigrant if the alien ‘is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist, or any other totalitarian party, domestic or foreign.’”
The U.S. Congressmen explain in the letter that, according to Biden-Harris Administration records obtained by the Committee on the Judiciary, Menéndez Castellanos denied any membership or affiliation with the Cuban Communist Party when questioned by immigration officials in his immigrant visa application — but then admitted and “downplayed” his communist party membership in another immigration application document.
“Incredibly, according to the Biden-Harris Administration records obtained by the Committee, advanced background vetting of Menéndez Castellanos did not find any information that made him inadmissible under the INA,” the letter read.
“While the INA contains a limited number of exceptions to the inadmissibility ground, it does not appear that the Biden-Harris Administration even invoked one of the exceptions to approve an immigrant visa for Menéndez Castellanos,” the letter continued.
The U.S. representatives stated that Biden-Harris Administration immigration officials “seemingly ignored” Menéndez Castellanos’s own admission of past affiliation with the Cuban Communist Party, and continued:
Potentially even more concerning is that security vetting conducted by the Biden-Harris Administration failed to find evidence that Menéndez Castellanos was affiliated with Fidel Castro’s brutal regime, despite overwhelming publicly-available evidence of his long-time and extensive work within that regime.
Menéndez Castellanos’ recent entry to the United States marks the latest publicly known case in a growing list of communist Castro regime officials who have moved to the United States over the past year.
The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC), a non-government Cuban civil rights organization, denounced in late August that more than 115 Castro regime officials have moved to the United States since February 2023. The number represents more than ten percent of the public list of more than 1,000 known Castro regime repressors that FHRC curates and maintains.
Prior to Menéndez Castellanos’ arrival, Cuban judge Melody González Pedraza landed in Tampa, Florida, and requested U.S. asylum. Victims of the Castro regime and their families have denounced the judge for issuing excessive multi-year prison sentences to peaceful Cuban dissidents who protested against the ruling communists.
Two nieces of Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz reportedly entered the United States and now reside in Florida. One of the nieces crossed the U.S. southern border while the other was accepted as a beneficiary of the Biden-Harris administration’s “humanitarian parole” program, which allows up to 30,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelans per month to live and work in the United States for a period of “two years.”
Marrero Cruz’s son, Manuel Alejandro Marrero Medina, was reportedly accepted as a beneficiary of the “humanitarian parole” program but was ultimately denied the required flight permit to enter the United States in late May. In that same month, Arelys Casañola Quintana, a former Castro regime local government official, entered the United States and is now reportedly believed to reside in Kentucky.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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