Bush is the Liberace of Cuban politics. He knows how to play us. He says every single thing they want to hear.
— Joe Garcia
We have all seen Washington politicians fail us.
There is nothing that I didn't get to do while I was serving in Congress - except be in the majority.
Fidel Castro had to sit there while he was given a speech on democracy, something the Cuban people have not been able to hear for 43 years.
Thousands of people in my district need health insurance, and ACA is helping them. I'm committed to do everything I can to help people get enrolled and get covered, and that includes moving needed reforms for the bill and helping people find affordable coverage.
The growth of purposeful travel is a good thing. It can have a positive impact. We should continue to experiment and move along this line.
The last time the Diaz-Balarts were removed from power, it took a revolution, and we ended up with Fidel Castro.
The Cold War has ended for America.
When members of this House use inflammatory language, use offensive language, it does not help the process. It is beneath the dignity of this body and this country.
Looking for a job, I was working with the Salvadoran American Foundation, a humanitarian aid group, and from there, I got an offer from the Cuban-American National Foundation.
We live in the world's greatest democracy; we want for nothing. And that which we want, we can work toward achieving.
If you give everybody a good government job, there's no crime.
I worked for the Cuban American National Foundation for years.
To help advance democracy, we need to allow for the reunification of Cuban families and the direct sending of remittances to the island's brave dissidents.
The people who support Mr. Curbelo's campaign are people who oppose Medicare and Social Security, want to reform it to take it away from our seniors, and oppose a minimum wage.
What you haven't seen from me are false attacks.
I have Obamacare; trust me - it's not perfect.
John Kerry's record on Cuba is pretty bad.
I will never be done with South Florida.
I've been a loud voice as a Democratic leader for years, but that's not my job now. My job is to represent fishermen and farmers - everyone.
Everybody wants to have the president talk about their issue.
When you remove just some of the barriers, people do what people do: help their families.
Our policies should be to help develop civil society and increase contacts with people.
You can still do the Big Lie in Miami and get away with it. This is a town where the basic institutions have collapsed.
The Republican Party views Hispanics in terms of market share: Who are they? How do we reach them? Democrats still view us in terms of quotas.
Sending $300 to your grandma in Cuba doesn't change the dynamic with Castro.
In undergraduate school, I chose a career path that always leads to certain unemployment: I majored in politics and public affairs with a double-minor in philosophy and history.
Cubans have no bar to being legalized once they are in America. All other Hispanics - with the exception of Puerto Ricans - have to go through a broken, dysfunctional process. One group is American from day one. And all the rest are trying to be.
I've got the most beautiful district. I can understand why Republicans want it.
I've got these high negatives because the Koch brothers have spent a year attacking me.
The poorest guy in Miami lives better than much of the power elite in Havana.
The Koch brothers are spending more money against me than I've been able to raise.
What we did was make it easier for people to subscribe to and expand Obamacare.
I think what we have to do is speak about the issues and speak about my record.
Right here at home, we have seen what happens when a politician breaks that public trust, when they are dishonest and corrupt.
There is nothing to regret with a job well done.
There is no question that I loved representing the people of South Florida.
I think more civil society programs, more free enterprise, more contacts with their fellow brethren in Miami - that's good for the long-term, and that's an investment in America's long-term relationship with the Cuban people, not the Cuban government.
The truth is that the driver in policy is not the relationship between the United States and Cuba, but the relationship between Cubans, and that is far stronger than 50 years of intragovernment hostility.
It shows courage, and it shows commitment to move beyond the status-quo politics of rhetoric, which is all the Cuban-American community has received from any party for the last half century.
Family is more important than ideology.
The world's longest-serving dictator has just stepped down and handed over power. The national project of Cuba, which was Fidel's vision, is now finished. It's something - a small something, but still something.
Visionless status quo policy towards Latin-America, particularly towards Cuba, has turned off a lot of people, and I think it's created an opening.
The reason there's not a dictatorship in Chile and that there's a democracy in South Africa and Portugal today - and that Haiti has a nascent democracy - is that the world community as a whole felt outraged. This is the reason Milosevic sits in a jail in The Hague. It's because the world has said, 'Enough.'
A day does not go by when I am not in a line at a store or at a McDonald's, and someone will touch my hand, and they will say, 'Thank you.'
My grandfather died under house arrest.
The key here is that we're not going to beat them on commercials: They're always going to have more money than us. So what we have to try to do throughout is just ask people to make sure they vote.
The Elian events were shocking to Cubans because we were the fair-haired boys of the Cold War. The problem is, the Cold War ended.
The Koch brothers spent millions against me.
I don't go to Washington to represent the president; I go to represent the people of this district.
