MIAMI, FL — Joseph Hernandez, Republican candidate for New York State Comptroller and a Cuban refugee who fled Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift, issued the following statement regarding the reported U.S. Department of Justice indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro:
“For many Cuban-American families, today’s news brings back decades of painful memories and emotions.
The Castro regime destroyed lives, separated families, imprisoned political dissidents, and forced generations of Cubans to live in fear. Behind the flashy headlines are real people whose lives were forever changed by oppression and political persecution.
My family lived through that reality firsthand.
My father was imprisoned as a political prisoner for speaking out against the Castro regime. His only crime was opposing a government that silenced dissent and punished those who dared to fight for freedom. My family endured the fear, uncertainty, and suffering from Castro’s unjust communist regime.
When I was seven years old, we fled Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift in search of freedom and a better life in the United States. Although Castro took everything we knew from my family, we arrived in America with hope, faith, and gratitude for the freedoms this country is blessed to have.
For decades, many families have waited for accountability and for the suffering inflicted under the Castro dictatorship to be acknowledged. The pain carried by the Cuban exile community has never disappeared. It lives on in the stories passed down from parents and grandparents who sacrificed everything so their children could live free.
I am immensely grateful for President Trump and his administration for their actions today helping to bring justice for those like me, and our families who suffered unimaginable injustices.
Today is a reminder that freedom is never guaranteed and that authoritarian regimes leave scars that last generations. I stand with the Cuban people and with all those who continue to fight for liberty, human rights, and democracy.”