Secretary of State Marco Rubio canceled the legal residency status of what the State Department on Wednesday called a major communist influence agent and ordered the national and his family deported to Cuba.
Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez, his wife and son were detained by federal agents this week, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement.
Mr. Lloga Dominguez “spent more than a decade working as a foreign subversive for the Communist Cuban regime’s premier influence and intelligence front group in the United States,” he said.
“Lloga Dominguez spent more than a decade employed by the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP),” Mr. Piggot said. “He has continued to maintain ties to the transnational communist subversion network throughout his time residing in our nation.”
The action comes as the Trump administration continues a pressure campaign against the Cuban government.
In March, President Trump said the regime in Havana will fall “pretty soon.” After the Justice Department filed criminal charges against former Cuban leader Raul Castro, Mr. Trump raised the prospect of military intervention to end the regime.
Mr. Rubio said in March that Cuba “has to get new people in charge,” and commented on what he called “incompetent communists.”
“The only thing worse than a communist is an incompetent one,” he said.
Mr. Rubio has said the administration favors ending the Cuban regime through a negotiated, peaceful agreement, and noted that “the likelihood of that happening … is not high. “
ICAP was sanctioned under a presidential order targeting people and organizations involved in repression in Cuba.
Mr. Piggot said the group is “the central node in a sprawling Cuban intelligence and influence operation” that includes more than 2,000 organizations in 150 nations.
The ICAP also has long and close ties to Cuban intelligence agents, he said.
Current ICAP President Fernando González Llort is a convicted Cuban spy who served 15 years in prison as part of the so-called Wasp Network — a Cuban spy ring that targeted exile groups in Miami.
“Working in close coordination with the Cuban communist regime, ICAP maintains an outsized footprint across the United States, trafficking in vile anti-American propaganda, cultivating pro-Havana regime activists and politicians, and lobbying federal, state and local politicians on behalf of the Cuban dictatorship,” Mr. Piggot said.
ICAP also acts as a liaison between Havana and radical U.S. groups in a bid to export the Cuban communist revolution to the U.S., he said.
“Under the Trump administration, America will never become home for Cuban Communist regime thugs who peddle propaganda, run foreign influence operations, or seek to wage revolution against American civilization,” Mr. Piggot said.
Cuba’s intelligence service has scored major spy penetrations of the U.S. government for many years, including the recruitment of Ana Montes, a Cuban agent within the Defense Intelligence Agency who supplied secrets to Havana for 17 years before her arrest in 2001.
Another Cuba agent, Marta Rita Velázquez, was a Justice Department and State Department official who helped spot and recruit Montes for Cuban intelligence. She fled to Sweden.
Walter Kendall Myers, a State Department Cuba analyst, was arrested in June 2009 and, together with his wife, was charged with being a long-term clandestine Cuban agent. He was sentenced to life in prison for providing secrets to Cuba for nearly 30 years. She also pleaded guilty.
Manuel Rocha, a career State Department diplomat, ambassador to Bolivia and a National Security Council staff member, was arrested in December 2023 and charged with secretly operating as a Cuban government agent. He pleaded guilty in 2024 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
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