The White House sent young Latinos undercover to mess with Cuba for less than $6 per hour


The Obama administration used the U.S. Agency for International Development as a front to send young Latin Americans undercover into Cuba to foment political unrest, according to an Associated Press report released Monday.
Begun in 2009, the program secretly recruited and deployed young people from Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Peru to the cloistered island. In one instance, the young agents staged an HIV-prevention workshop to network with disaffected locals — an event that a memo obtained by the AP called "the perfect excuse" for the group to pursue its secret goals. What's more, the spies worked for as little as $5.41 per hour.
More from the AP:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
[T]heir efforts were fraught with incompetence and risk, an Associated Press investigation found: Cuban authorities questioned who was bankrolling the travelers. The young workers nearly blew their mission to "identify potential social-change actors." One said he got a paltry, 30-minute seminar on how to evade Cuban intelligence, and there appeared to be no safety net for the inexperienced workers if they were caught. [Associated Press]
The revelation comes four months after the AP reported that the Obama administration, also via USAID, tried to create a Cuban Twitter network to destabilize the country. At least USAID did not, as far as we know, take a cue from the CIA and try to topple Cuba with a Castro demon doll.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.
-
George Floyd: Did Black Lives Matter fail?
Feature The momentum for change fades as the Black Lives Matter Plaza is scrubbed clean
-
National debt: Why Congress no longer cares
Feature Rising interest rates, tariffs and Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill could sent the national debt soaring
-
Why are military experts so interested in Ukraine's drone attack?
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION The Zelenskyy government's massive surprise assault on Russian airfields was a decisive tactical victory — could it also be the start of a new era in autonomous warfare?
-
Depleted FEMA struggling as hurricane season begins
speed read FEMA has lost a third of its workforce amid DOGE cuts enforced by President Donald Trump
-
White House tackles fake citations in MAHA report
speed read A federal government public health report spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was rife with false citations
-
Judge blocks push to bar Harvard foreign students
speed read Judge Allison Burroughs sided with Harvard against the Trump administration's attempt to block the admittance of international students
-
Trump's trade war whipsawed by court rulings
Speed Read A series of court rulings over Trump's tariffs renders the future of US trade policy uncertain
-
Elon Musk departs Trump administration
speed read The former DOGE head says he is ending his government work to spend more time on his companies
-
Trump taps ex-personal lawyer for appeals court
speed read The president has nominated Emil Bove, his former criminal defense lawyer, to be a federal judge
-
US trade court nullifies Trump's biggest tariffs
speed read The US Court of International Trade says Trump exceeded his authority in imposing global tariffs
-
Trump pauses all new foreign student visas
speed read The State Department has stopped scheduling interviews with those seeking student visas in preparation for scrutiny of applicants' social media