Cuban Voters – And Congress Members – Want It Both Ways On Cuba And Immigration | Opinion
A new poll gauging the post-election mindset of Florida’s Cuban voters has one data point that’s triggering political PTSD in this corner of the peninsula.
According to the Bendixen & Amandi International survey, 40 percent of the Florida Cuban bloc – and two-thirds of that bloc who voted for former President Trump – don’t accept the results of the November election, which Trump clearly and fairly lost and President Biden clearly and legally won.
But after watching Cuban-Americans flock to Trump in recent years – not just their enthusiastic support for his hardline Cuba policy, which I can respect, but their fanatical zeal for his fraudulent demonization of Biden as a comunista, which I can’t – I’m no more shocked by that poll finding than I am seeing people drink cortaditos on Calle Ocho.
No, the Bendixen result that really caught my eye is less related to the electoral contest of November – and more relevant to the immigration crisis of March. To wit: half of Florida’s Cuban voters want Cuban Family Reunification Parole (CFRP) revived.
What’s astonishing about that? Consider in the same survey, two-thirds of Florida’s Cuban voters also said the U.S. should not revive engagement with communist Cuba.
In other words, Cuban-Americans are telling the Biden Administration to restore a coveted immigration benefit – but they’re also telling Biden to keep his hands off the hardline Trump agenda that essentially took CFRP away from them.
Read the complete Viewpoint here on the WLRN website.
Tim Padgett is the Americas editor for Miami NPR affiliate WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida.
