MIAMI — State and national leaders are adding their voices to calls for U.S. intervention on the crisis in Cuba.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr gave a news conference in Miami Thursday afternoon from Salazar's office.
The conference comes one day after DeSantis sent a letter to President Joe Biden requesting federal assistance to “provide Internet access to the people of Cuba standing up against communist oppression and demanding a voice after decades of suffering under the yoke of a cruel dictatorship.”
"We are in an emergency situation where we need to get every single possible technology there," Carr said, speaking on his push for President Biden to provide support for American businesses to deliver internet service to the Cuban people.
Here's how the technology would work: There are balloons that carry a transmitter. That piece of equipment goes up in the air for two to three days. When it comes back down, another one goes back up. The equipment is inexpensive, so the devices currently used by the U.S. military are not generally retrieved. But new research could develop a glider to bring the receiver back in order to lower the costs.
The devices would not need to enter Cuban airspace. Anyone with a cellphone would be able to pick up the signal.
"Is it going to be gigabit speed fiber? You know, I doubt that," Carr said. "But can we get internet connectivity so that the videos and pictures can get out of the country -- so that the messages get back? ... We're talking about how to shine a bright light inside that island nation."
DeSantis said Florida and the U.S. must stand with the people of Cuba against its "communist dictatorship," saying one of the most effective things we can do as a country is to help get the internet back onto the island of Cuba.
"The one thing that communist regimes fear the most is the truth," DeSantis said. "And if we're able to help Cubans communicate with one another, also communicate with the outside world, that truth is going to matter. That truth will be decisive."
Salazar said that if Biden gives the approval, the technology could be up and running in a matter of days.
"The only thing we need is for the Biden administration to give us the go-ahead, to give us the greenlight," Salazar said. "And then we will put together the technology so that we can upload internet once again and the Cubans can decide what they want to do, upload those images so the rest of the world will determine when do we need to help them, and that is now."
"We have the technical capability to do this & doing so would show strong support for their fight for freedom," Carr tweeted.
DeSantis said that Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has "shut off" internet access to Cuba so the world could not see the people taking to the streets to protest the Communist regime.
Following days of protesters filling the streets of several Cuban cities and Americans demonstrating in solidarity, the Cuban government said Thursday it will temporarily lift restrictions on the amount of food, medicine and hygiene products travelers can bring into the country, according to multiple reports.
The new rules will take effect starting Monday until the end of the year.