{"id":418,"date":"2026-05-24T14:08:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=418"},"modified":"2026-05-24T14:08:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:08:57","slug":"biden-gave-migrant-parole-to-cuban-pilot-implicated-in-raul-castro-plot-to-kill-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=418","title":{"rendered":"Biden gave migrant \u2018parole\u2019 to Cuban pilot implicated in Raul Castro plot to kill Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last week\u2019s indictment of Raul Castro and five Cuban pilots for the 1996 killing of four Americans flying humanitarian missions near Cuba had a curious footnote: One of the pilots is already in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Read more Two top ex-execs at Christianity Today sexually harassed staffers, magazine says<\/a><\/p>\n

Luis Raul Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez came to the U.S. in 2024, entering the country thanks to one of President Joseph R. Biden\u2019s \u201cparole\u201d programs.<\/p>\n

That a retired lieutenant colonel of the Cuban air force was allowed in marks a major failure of vetting by the Biden administration and undercuts the claims of former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who said every parolee underwent \u201cnational security and public safety vetting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is deeply alarming that one of the indicted regime pilots was allowed into the United States under the Biden administration without proper vetting,\u201d said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, Florida Republican. \u201cThis is exactly what happens when weak enforcement and reckless open-border policies put politics ahead of public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez was named in last week\u2019s indictment as one of five pilots who acted on orders of Mr. Castro, then-Cuban defense chief, in trying to shoot down three Cessnas flown by Brothers to the Rescue, an exile-led group that flew humanitarian missions aimed at helping refugees and boosting a pro-democracy movement on the island.<\/p>\n

Two of the planes, which were unarmed and over international waters heading away from Cuba, were shot down. Four American citizens were killed.<\/p>\n

The pilot of one of the Cuban MiGs, Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez, stands accused of firing the air-to-air missiles that downed those planes.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez was on the runway at San Antonio de los Banos at that point, listening to the radio traffic as the first MiG was authorized to fire and took the shots. Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez was then ordered into the air to hunt a third Brothers to the Rescue Cessna. That plane escaped.<\/p>\n

Twenty-eight years later, Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez would make it to the U.S. under the Biden parole program known as Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, or CHNV.\u00a0Created by Mr. Mayorkas, the program was intended to give people from those four nations who lacked legal permission to enter the U.S. a chance to come without rushing the southwestern border. They applied ahead of time, arranged for a financial sponsor to pledge to support them if needed, and then flew into airports in America\u2019s interior.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mayorkas allowed 30,000 CHNV permits a month.\u00a0He said those who were approved had to pass the security and safety background check.<\/p>\n

Analysts said that means either the Biden administration was aware of Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez\u2019s background and allowed him in, or else the vetting wasn\u2019t as thorough as Mr. Mayorkas touted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what they wanted,\u201d said Emilio Gonzalez, who ran U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Bush administration. \u201cThey wanted to bring in as many people as humanly possible. This guy is an example. The Tren de Aragua guys are examples. The people who are engaging in Medicaid fraud in Minnesota are examples.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement to The Washington Times, confirmed his arrival and a daughter\u2019s arrival in April 2024 under the CHNV program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis broken process allowed hundreds of thousands of unvetted aliens to circumvent the traditional parole process,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n

It said his parole was canceled on April 25, 2025, after DHS terminated the CHNV parole program altogether. At that point Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez became an illegal immigrant, DHS said.<\/p>\n

The department didn\u2019t describe what vetting he underwent in 2024 or divulge details of who sponsored him for the CHNV program.<\/p>\n

Read more Foreigners looking for green cards will need to leave U.S. and apply in their home country<\/a><\/p>\n

If the department had gone looking, it could have spotted his military past: Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez admitted in a 2016 visa application that he spent 30 years in Cuba\u2019s armed forces.<\/p>\n

But a year later, in another visa application, he omitted that. He also omitted it last year, when he applied for a green card in the U.S.<\/p>\n

He has now pled guilty to lying on the green card application. He is scheduled to be sentenced for that offense on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez admitted in his plea agreement to spending years as a pilot for Cuba\u2019s military. He said he was recruited in his teens and sent to Russia to study combat aviation from 1977 to 1980.<\/p>\n

He made two subsequent training trips to Russia and served two missions in Angola, where Fidel Castro had deployed Cuban troops to back communist troops fighting pro-Western forces.<\/p>\n

The agreement doesn\u2019t mention the Brothers to the Rescue matter.<\/p>\n

But JustTheNews reported this month that Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez has turned state\u2019s witness and is telling what he knows.<\/p>\n

Several experts told The Times that would make sense \u2014 and could explain why the case against Mr. Castro, which had languished for decades, was revived.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in the cockpit, he was in the air, he heard the kill order,\u201d said Emilio Gonzalez,\u00a0the former USCIS director.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez\u2019s lawyer didn\u2019t respond to an inquiry for this report. In a court filing ahead of sentencing, attorney Miguel Rosada said his client feared that being truthful about his military service would \u201cjeopardize his ability to remain in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis offense represents a serious lapse in judgment, but it does not define the entirety of the Defendant\u2019s life or character. He is a husband, father, grandfather, provider, and caretaker who has otherwise lived a life marked by hard work, sacrifice, and devotion to his family and community,\u201d Mr. Rosada said in asking the judge for lenience.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez\u2019s relatives flooded the court with character letters depicting a common Cuban story of families with people in the U.S. and Cuba, and a belief that America was the safety valve for an impoverished country.<\/p>\n

His wife of 27 years, Ohilda de la C. Mesa Guanche, said her own retirement left her money for little more than \u201ca bottle of oil, a pound of bread and a bag of rice.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez came to the U.S. to earn money to support their family back home. That included paying for meals and medications for her ailing 87-year-old father.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no other option but to immigrate to the United States of America,\u201d she wrote to the judge.<\/p>\n

Read more The remains of 4 Italian divers killed in a Maldives cave dive have been repatriated<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Last week’s indictment of Raul Castro and five Cuban pilots for the 1996 killing of four Americans flying humanitarian missions near Cuba had a curious footnote: One of the pilots is already in the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[55,367,368,141],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-alejandro-mayorkas","tag-joseph-r-biden","tag-luis-raul-gonzalez-pardo-rodriguez","tag-raul-castro"],"yoast_head":"\nBiden gave migrant \u2018parole\u2019 to Cuban pilot implicated in Raul Castro plot to kill Americans - Home Buyer Relocation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=418\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biden gave migrant \u2018parole\u2019 to Cuban pilot implicated in Raul Castro plot to kill Americans - Home Buyer Relocation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week's indictment of Raul Castro and five Cuban pilots for the 1996 killing of four Americans flying humanitarian missions near Cuba had a curious footnote: One of the pilots is already in the U.S.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=418\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Home Buyer Relocation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-24T14:08:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/?p=418#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/?p=418\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b2ac56955b020950324cad4c6c27b42a\"},\"headline\":\"Biden gave migrant \u2018parole\u2019 to Cuban pilot implicated in Raul Castro plot to kill Americans\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-24T14:08:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/?p=418\"},\"wordCount\":1099,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/?p=418#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/homebuyerrelocation.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/5306a14f0e4ba55ed3f2a548f9bf7828.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"Alejandro Mayorkas\",\"Joseph R. 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