On July 20, 2026, the State Department released a report titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism” that names individual American citizens and a domestic political organization as instruments of a foreign adversary.
Singled out are the political streamer Hasan Piker, Amazon labor organizer Christian Smalls, the environmental activist Isra Hirsi, who is Rep. Ilhan Omar's daughter, and the Democratic Socialists of America, which the report says “maintains a fierce, almost religious commitment to the cause of the Cuban regime.” Their alleged offense is visiting Cuba and expressing sympathy for it; the report claims “this constant stream of Western left-wing activists, influencers and organizers is coordinated by a network of Cuba-backed nonprofits, foundations, academic and cultural partnerships.”
The report is a piece of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's campaign against what he calls “far-left political terrorism,” which the same week featured Stephen Miller telling a 67-nation gathering that leftists are a “cancer” to “root out.” An official State Department publication branding named citizens and a 120,000-member domestic political organization as agents of a hostile government, for lawful travel and lawful advocacy, builds the government's target list in public. It is the same architecture Mahmoud Khalil's lawsuit describes: official power aimed at a disfavored political movement (see At a 67-Nation State Department Gathering, Miller Calls Leftists a 'Cancer' to 'Root Out' as Rubio Vows to 'Dismantle' Their Networks, Mahmoud Khalil Sues Rubio, Miller, and Blanche Under the 1871 KKK Act, Alleging a Public-Private Conspiracy Against Pro-Palestinian Activists and The DOJ Indicts 15 Minnesotans on Conspiracy Charges Over Anti-ICE Protests, Citing 'Antifa Ties').
The reaction named the era and the worry. Critics quoted by Common Dreams called the report “McCarthyite” and warned it reads as an attempt to justify a Trump invasion of Cuba, casting the naming of American leftists as groundwork for treating the island, and its alleged domestic “network,” as a security threat.
The list grew into a blacklist. As fuller versions of the report circulated, it named at least 43 Americans and organizations, adding NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rep. Maxine Waters, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Rep. Ilhan Omar, journalist Amy Goodman, Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Amazon Labor Union. Most strikingly, the report tied the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd's murder to alleged Cuban influence, claiming Cuba “exploited” his killing for ideological ends. Naming a murdered man and a mass American protest movement as instruments of a foreign adversary is the point at which the document stops reading as a foreign-policy report and starts reading as a modern blacklist of the American left, which is how ZNetwork, Truthout, and others described it.