Last week, a group of 14 exiled Cuban dissidents living in the United States sent a letter to the US government and several members of Congress, urging officials to help them obtain legal status in the country. Some of them said they feared deportation.
Among the dissidents is rap singer Eliexer Márquez Duany. Known as El Funky, Márquez is one of the authors of “Patria y Vida,” a song that became an anthem for many protesters in Cuba who took to the streets in landmark July 2021 demonstrations that Cuba’s government severely repressed.
The song, which repurposes the Cuban government’s slogan “Patria o Muerte,” earned global recognition and fierce reprisal in Cuba. While Márquez managed to leave Cuba, two of the song’s other authors, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Pérez, are respectively serving five and nine-year sentences in Cuba, following prosecutions that violated their rights to freedom of expression and association.
In April 2025, Márquez said US authorities denied his permanent residency and ordered that he leave the country within 33 days. He told Human Rights Watch that returning to Cuba would be “suicidal.”
Other dissidents who signed the letter include journalist Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca and human rights advocate Eralidis Frómeta. The pair were given 26 days to leave the United States following the Trump administration’s termination of a humanitarian parole program for nationals of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti.
Valle Roca was jailed in Cuba in 2021 after posting a video of pro-democracy leaflets thrown from a building in the capital. He says he was beaten and put in solitary confinement.
Many other Cuban dissidents, including journalists, artists, and academics, say they remain stuck in lengthy US immigration proceedings and face the risk of being deported or arrested because of their legal status.
The US government should give Cubans and all others fearing persecution in their home country a fair chance to seek asylum in the United States. They should not be deported to countries like Cuba if they risk abuse there.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, should know that well.
