Feb. 25 (UPI) — Exporting labor to other nations to enrich Cuban elites at the expense of Cuban citizens prompted Secretary of State Marco Rubio to expand visa restrictions on Cuban officials and others.
“This expanded policy applies to current or former Cuban government officials and other individuals, including foreign government officials, who are believed to be responsible for or involve in the Cuban labor export program,” Rubio said Tuesday in a press statement.
The expanded restrictions also apply to the immediate family of such people.
Rubio said Cuba profits from the forced labor of its workers said the Cuban regime’s “abusive and coercive labor practices are well documented.”
Cuba’s leadership generates significant export income by forcing its healthcare workers to provide their medical services overseas, which Rubio said deprives Cuban citizens of much-needed medical care.
“Cuba’s labor export programs, which include the medical missions, enrich the Cuban regime and, in the case of Cuba’s overseas medical missions, deprive ordinary Cubans of the medical care they desperately need in their home country,” Rubio said.
“The United States is committed to countering forced labor practices around the globe,” Rubio continued. “To do so, we must promote accountability, not just for Cuban officials responsible for these policies, but also those complicit in the exploitation and forced labor of Cuban workers.”
Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and said the visa restriction policy is taken in pursuit of Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Similar restrictions have been placed on several others, including Venezuelan officials, who no longer can come to the United States legally while they are subject to visa restrictions.