Marco Rubio has long been a fierce critic of dictatorial leaders who have stifled speech in their countries and crushed opposition. As a senator, he spearheaded legislation and condemned “the ongoing repression of dissent” in his parents’ native Cuba and repeatedly called for “expression not repression” in countries like Venezuela.
But now as secretary of state, he’s at the center of the government’s recent actions to deny visa holders entry into the U.S. or arrest and try to deport people, including a green card holder married to a U.S. citizen. Critics of the administration’s measures and those involved in the cases have said they were targeted because of their speech, their support for Palestinians or their criticism of Trump administration policies.
Rubio dismissed backlash last week over the arrest and attempt to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. “This is not about free speech. This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with,” Rubio told reporters on March 12. “No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way.”
As secretary of state, Rubio has the right to revoke a green card or a visa under a 1952 immigration law, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt recently told reporters, though legal scholars say the government has to prove why it’s warranted.
Some experts who have followed Rubio’s career see a dissonance between his actions as secretary of state and what he advocated as a senator, especially his intolerance for political repression, undercutting his authority to demand the restoration of democratic freedoms elsewhere.
“It’s rank hypocrisy,” said Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Drezner, who has written about Rubio’s political evolution, said the secretary of state has done a “180”-degree turn from what he’s stood for in his political career.
Drezner said Rubio’s hawkishness toward Latin America, and particularly Cuba, is a constant in his political career. “Maybe the thought is he’s saying and doing things that contradict the substance of his critique of Cuba,” Drezner said, “but if by doing that, he still gets to critique Cuba and have Donald Trump agree with him, maybe that in itself, in Rubio’s mind, may be worth it.”
There’s no shortage of video, transcripts and legislative action in which Rubio defends democratic principles such as freedom of assembly and vilifies countries that repress those freedoms.
After Sen. Tim Kaine discussed on the Senate floor his trip to Cuba in 2014 — the year then-President Barack Obama normalized relations with the country — Rubio responded with a searing speech saying Cuba was “good at repression” and exporting it to places like Venezuela. He cited the example of Leopoldo Lopez, the former mayor of Caracas. “He’s sitting in jail right now because he’s protesting against the government,” he said at the time.
In 2022, Rubio protested Cuba’s participation in the ninth Summit of the Americas because its president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, had “criminalized criticism” of the government.
In response to questions from NBC News, a State Department spokesperson repeated Rubio’s comments that the issue isn’t about free speech, adding that while the department doesn’t discuss individual visa cases, all visa applicants “are continuously vetted” by the government.
‘Sends a clear message’
Although not directly critical of Rubio, the founder of a U.S.-based group that monitors human rights in Cuba said she’s wary of what she’s seeing happening in the U.S.
The arrests of the immigrant protesters and academics “is a step backwards in human rights but also in democracy,” said Laritza Diversent, founder of Cubalex, adding it “sends a clear message: Be careful what you say on social media, or you can be next.”
Diversent grew up in Cuba under Fidel Castro and fled in 2017 when Cubalex, then a Havana-based legal group, became a target of government intimidation.
Dictatorships use the strategy of denying dissenters entry to their countries, she said. If she tried to fly to Cuba for an emergency, the government might deny her entry, as has happened throughout the communist government’s history, including what happened to the late famed singer Celia Cruz. She was denied entry to Cuba multiple times, including when her mother was dying.
Regarding the recent Trump administration actions, “this is the first step towards a society becoming silent before abuses, where people don’t dare say what they think to avoid certain consequences,” Diversent said.
Concerns over the visa denials and arrests are not confined to Cuban exiles. Juan Carlos Avita, 19, an aerospace engineering student in Elroy, Arizona, said he cast his first presidential ballot for Trump in November, hoping he’d usher in a new economy.
But the Mexican American student said he’s disturbed by the clamping down on free speech and the right to protest. He accepts the need to take steps against those who commit violence, but said immigrants “bring unique perspectives from across the world” that maybe that could enrich Americans, he said, “as long as they’re following the other laws. They’re not hurting anyone physically. They’re not damaging private property.”
Rubio “shouldn’t be two-faced when it comes to America, especially [on] Palestine,” said Avita, who said he’s come to “think I made a mistake” when he voted for Trump.
Daniel Pedreira, a visiting assistant teaching professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University, said the steps taken by the U.S. and Rubio’s role in them are distinct from what has occurred in countries with repressive governments, because the U.S. continues to have a separation of powers.
Khalil’s case is in the courts and a judge has blocked the deportation of Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown graduate student from India, who was picked up by immigration agents and accused of spreading Hamas propaganda. Suri’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, denied Thursday that Suri ever made pro-Hamas or antisemitic statements. In Cuba or Venezuela, Pedreira noted, there would be no pushback or chance for appeal.
Immigration law has allowed the deportations of legal residents, visa holders or foreign tourists for a number of crimes, including crimes involving “moral turpitude.” Homeland Security, law enforcement and border officials have long had to balance public safety with international immigration and cross-border commerce.
No contradiction
John Suarez, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, said the Florida Cuban community has seen terrorists and spies infiltrating the U.S. and torturers and prison guards from Cuba getting legal residence. He noted the recent arrest of Tomas Emilio Hernandez Cruz, 71, a former high-ranking official in the Cuban intelligence service.
Suarez, who’s also a human rights activist, said his organization ardently supports free speech, “even speech we find repugnant,” he said. But he also said he does not see a contradiction in Rubio’s actions and his record challenging repressive regimes because the secretary of state has said that he’s targeting people who “occupy university buildings and vandalize them and tear them apart, and hold campuses hostage.”
Rubio still enjoys strong support in Florida’s Cuban American community, Suarez said. The secretary of state was greeted warmly by the community at the recent funeral for Lincoln Díaz Balart, the former congressman, which Suarez also attended.
Back in Arizona, 64-year-old Eric Busch of Phoenix, a Trump supporter in 2016, 2020 and 2024, said he has respected U.S. laws since coming to the country from Chile. “You’re here on a tourist visa, a student visa or business, you have to respect the law,” said Busch, a semitruck salesman and naturalized citizen.
He said he agreed with Rubio on Khalil’s case. “He should respect the law and be peacefully protesting. This guy is not peaceful,” Busch said of Khalil, adding, “If the Cubans want to come and do the same, they should be kicked out as well, or Chileans. I don’t care.”
But the history of Cuba’s slide to authoritarianism, from the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista to Castro’s communist takeover and the party’s ongoing control should be familiar to Rubio — and one that should be taken seriously, according to a scholar of Cuban history.
When Castro took power in 1959, he relied on mob mentality and portrayed conditions as “black and white” to ensure that “he and his power and those loyal to him would predominate,” said Lillian Guerra, a professor of Cuban and Caribbean history at the University of Florida.
“Marco Rubio as secretary of state should be very aware of the history of the rise of authoritarianism in Cuba and how that really dismantled more than 100 years of the struggle for democracy on the island, as well as the lessons of how Fidel Castro managed to centralize authority and create authoritarianism — the strategies, the means, the enabling,” Guerra said.
“All of those things are very close to his history,” Guerra said of Rubio. “I don’t know how he could sanction what seems to be happening at all levels of the Trump administration.”
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