The Obama administration is hosting visits to U.S. Coast Guard facilities by Cuban Border Guard officials as part of its policy of seeking closer ties with the communist government in Havana.
The visits are raising concerns among officials and security analysts that closer ties with Cuba will benefit aggressive Cuban intelligence operations in the United States that have been underway for decades.
A delegation of Cuban officials arrives this week for visits to Coast Guard bases in Florida and Alabama following an earlier visit two months ago.
The Department of Homeland Security, which arranged the visits, refused to provide details of the Cuban delegation. But a spokeswoman said they are part of an exchange program.
“These visits represent professional exchanges between the U.S. Coast Guard and the Cuban Border Guard to discuss issues of mutual interest such as at-sea rescue operations,” DHS spokeswoman Gillian Christensen told the Washington Free Beacon, without elaborating.
Cuban officials on March 18 visited three Coast Guard port facilities in the south, including one near Mobile, Alabama. The group also toured an oil refinery in Alabama, according to a Coast Guard spokeswoman.
A State Department official said the Cuban Border Guard tours of Coast Guard bases are an outgrowth of the president’s pro-Havana tilt. “?The administration’s new policy of engagement has enabled U.S. agencies to discuss and coordinate on topics of mutual interest as we work to normalize relations.”
The official referred further questions to the Cuban government. A Cuban Embassy official did not respond to email requests for comment….
….The Cubans were given public information briefings and presentations about Coast Guard operations in Mobile followed by a question and answer session on the Maritime Transportation Security Act, she said. At the refinery, the Cubans were given a briefing and tour by the refinery’s security officer.
Cuba’s Border Guard troops are part of the Cuban Interior Ministry that directs the Intelligence Directorate, the political police, and an intelligence service modeled after the Soviet-era KGB intelligence service. The Border Guard in the past has been involved in liaisons with the U.S. Coast Guard.
Ministry of the Interior headquarters, Havana
Cuba’s intelligence services also cooperate with Russian intelligence services.
International drug traffickers are known to use Cuban waters and airspace to evade U.S. drug interdiction efforts.
The visits have raised concerns among security officials about Cuba’s role in conducting aggressive intelligence activities in the United States.
“Cuba—with historic, deeply held KGB connections—continues to command an enormous intelligence capacity and network to spy on America,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
“Hosting Cuban government officials and delivering them to ‘tour’ American national security facilities—as well as critical infrastructure sites in the United States—proves that this administration naively believes that Cuba has changed,” Pompeo said. “It has not. And its espionage against the United States continues.”
