As I wrote in November 2025, the Cuban regime has been trying to influence the new generations in America for years. The audacity with which some of their sympathizers operate on U.S. soil is reckless. What is most outrageous to a Cuban fleeing socialism is seeing a horde of so-called intellectuals marching against capitalism while wearing a T-shirt featuring the assassin known as Che Guevara.

Fortunately, however, the Trump administration has begun doing what no other has done before: confronting these propagandists with the full force of the law. Currently in the crosshairs are the influential Marxist commentator Hasan Piker and CodePink Co-Founder Susan Benjamin.

Both — having been issued citations by the Office of Foreign Assets Control — visited Havana in March on an “ideological safari,” aiming to echo the Castro regime’s narrative regarding the extent to which the U.S. “blockade” impacts the daily lives of ordinary Cubans. In a capital city shrouded in darkness, they stayed at the only place with electricity: a luxury hotel owned by the regime.

In doing so, both Piker and Benjamin allegedly violated U.S. law, which prohibits citizens from staying in state-owned facilities, based on the rationale that such funds would not end up in the hands of the Cuban people. Anticipating this, several American commentators who have traveled to the island to document its reality have chosen to stay in “casas particulares” — hostels run by ordinary Cubans.

The citations issued to Piker and Benjamin are not an isolated incident. Rather, it stems from a broader investigation seeking to determine whether organizations and U.S. citizens violated U.S. laws and sanctions by supporting a socialist tyranny.

Officials from the Departments of the Treasury, State, and Justice are reportedly coordinating efforts to curb malicious foreign influence operations within the country — particularly those activities related to supporting political violence, extremist movements, or acts of terrorism.

At the center of the investigation lies a single name: that of the leftist American tech magnate Neville Roy Singham, a key figure in the financing of a network of nonprofit organizations. According to Piker himself, these are dedicated to the “defense of political causes” and to “many political movements.”

However, this support comes not only from international capital but also from the “accompaniment” of Castroist diplomacy in the United States — regarded by analysts as a perennial source of espionage.

Federal authorities are investigating David Ramírez Álvarez, Second Secretary of the Embassy of Cuba in Washington, D.C., for allegedly coordinating a malign foreign influence campaign on U.S. soil.

Fox News recently published a video in which Ramírez Álvarez participated in a meeting of left-wing radicals. But that is nothing new. This influence over potential community organizations and leaders dates back decades — to when the current mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, traveled to the island as part of the Venceremos Brigade, or when Cuban American socialist Danny Valdes was part of Zorhan Mamdani’s campaign.

As former Chavista general Hugo Carvajal confessed last year, Havana has been among the operators with spies infiltrated in American institutions, who have laundered money in Miami, New York, and Texas and who coordinate operations to influence strategic decisions in Washington.

How? One way we have known about for some time is through activists or proxy groups that it trains and that its diplomats support, such as Calla Walsh, co-founder of Unity of Fields, formerly known as Palestine Action US, the Armed Queers of Salt Lake City, or the Democratic Socialists of America.

These organizations always find a way to interconnect their agendas and actions in tributes to Fidel Castro alongside Ernesto Soberon Guzman, Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations. Cuba had trained organizers behind the anti-Israel protests on university campuses, including the leader of The People’s Forum, Manolo De Los Santos, an avowed admirer of the Cuban Revolution, who posted in 2023 that he spent 10 days in Cuba “learning with its people & President Miguel Diaz-Canel.”

As a Cuban exile, I thank U.S. authorities for working to ensure the national security of their citizens and of those of us who have found refuge in this beautiful nation. The most positive effect, I hope, is that other bad actors will think twice before violating the law in support of a tyranny like the Castro regime — at least during this administration.