State Department Revokes Visas for Central American Officials Exploiting Cuban Doctors

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on June 2 that the United States has taken additional steps to revoke the visas of Central American officials who exploit Cuban doctors.

The measure, targeting several government officials from Central American countries and their family members, is “for their nexus to the Cuban regime’s forced labor scheme.”

The secretary of state said the new measure seeks to promote accountability for those who support and perpetuate these practices.

“The Cuban labor export program abuses the participants, enriches the corrupt Cuban regime, and deprives everyday Cubans of essential medical care that they desperately need in their homeland,” Rubio said. 

In February, Rubio announced that the State Department was expanding its visa restriction policy for Cuban officials and “complicit third-country government officials and individuals responsible for Cuba’s exploitative labor export program.”

The Epoch Times contacted the State Department for additional details on the measure and whether any Central American officials had already been sanctioned under it.

According to a department 2024 report on human trafficking, through its labor export program, the Cuban government forces or coerces the Cuban doctors in its foreign countries programs by retaining their passports or professional credentials. The government also restricts their movements with surveillance and curfews, confiscates their salaries, or issues threats.

Some of these Cuban doctors have to work long hours in some countries, without rest or in precarious and dangerous working conditions, according to the report.

In recent years, Cuban doctors have been sent to Central American countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Panama, and Nicaragua, as well as other countries in the region and around the world, under the programs of the so-called medical brigades of Cuba’s authoritarian government.

For the doctor’s services, the Cuban government receives billions in revenue each year.

In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 100 Cuban doctors specializing in intensive care, internal medicine, cardiology, pulmonology, and epidemiology were sent to Panama for eight months.

The Honduran government announced in February 2024 the arrival of around 100 Cuban doctors in the country to care for low-income communities. During the same month, a group of Cuban doctors was in Belize.

The governments of Guatemala and Cuba signed an agreement in August 2024 for the arrival of groups of Cuban doctors that will remain in force until 2027.

In response to the deployment of Cuban doctors abroad, the vice president of the European Parliament said last year that the “forced labor” of Cuban doctors abroad was “slavery” and “trafficking.”