News from home stirs trauma—past and present—for Cuban pastor

By Elket Rodríguez

Cubans in exile have been suffering alongside their activist sisters and brothers on the island, reported Pastor David Deulofeu of Templo Bautista de South Houston—Baptist Temple of South Houston.

Along with thousands of Cubans living in the United States, Deulofeu shared pain and torment when many activists in Cuba were arrested for protesting against an increase in blackouts, food shortages and the spread of COVID-19 early this month.

"I don’t know of a single Cuban (in exile) who does not have nightmares of dreaming that he is back in Cuba, and he cannot leave," Deulofeu said. "The nightmare is recurring.”

Deulofeu—who has led Templo Bautista 10 years—fled Cuba in 2001 and relocated to the United States in 2008. He knows what government persecution feels like. His great-grandfather and grandfather were Baptist pastors, and his father was a political prisoner in Cuba.

"I experienced the persecution of the church as a child because I come from a Baptist family, one recognized by generations," he explained.

Cubans need prayer and advocacy now as much as at any time in their history he said. "The way to help the Cuban people right now is to pray for a change of government," he added. “Also by pressing for the release of the prisoners, eliminating the trade embargo and pressing so that the Cuban government allows for humanitarian aid to reach the Cuban people; not administered by the government, but by social organizations and churches.”

The Cuban government has blocked social media and has restricted its citizens’ Internet access in an apparent effort to censor the dissenters. These measures could lead to a rise in migration from Cuba, Deulofeu observed.

"Every time there was a crisis in Cuba, the government's solution was to release the pressure by letting people get out," he said. "The United States needs to prepare, because lots of Cubans are going to arrive."

Pastor Deulofeu, right

If the Cuban government’s past indicates its future, history seems to favor Deulofeu's prediction. Since Fidel Castro's communist revolution took control of the island in 1959, about 11.4 million Cubans have emigrated. That is almost exactly equal to Cuba’s current population.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to improve immigration and integration policies through research and analysis, five stages of massive Cuban emigration have occurred—the exodus after the rise of Castro in the 1960s, the freedom flights in the ’70s, the Mariel exodus in the ’80s, and then balsero—“boat people”—crisis and the fall of the Soviet bloc in the ’90s. 

According to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, 26,196 Cubans have been apprehended at the U.S. border in the current fiscal year—October 2020 to June 2021. Most are single adults, the largest cohort expelled from the United States under Title 42, which allows immigration officials to remove immigrants from the country due to health concerns, most notably COVID. Not surprisingly, this age group comprises  almost all recidivists or repeat crossers of the border.

"Right now, the arrivals and departures from and to Cuba are stalled because of COVID-19," Deulofeu reported. "But when the flow (of trips) begins to normalize, Cubans will leave en masse and reach the U.S. border."

Let us pray for our sisters and brothers in Cuba. Like them, millions of migrants worldwide are suffering persecution, oppression and poverty. Please also pray for immigrants among us, like Pastor Deulofeu, who remember the traumas of the past, and suffer as they witness the injustices taking place in their countries of origin. 

Elket Rodríguez is the immigrant and refugee advocacy and missions specialist for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Fellowship Southwest.