State Department and Catholic Relief Services provide Cubans humanitarian aid 

The U.S. State Department, in partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), sent the first humanitarian relief flight to Cuba Tuesday, following Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s $100 million commitment to assist the Cuban people after hurricane devastation.

“We want them to have a better future,” said Rubio Tuesday, whose parents emigrated from Cuba. “We’re prepared to do things to help them get there, but they have to decide that they want to do that.”

The flight marks the beginning of what is expected to become weekly humanitarian relief shipments to the island nation after Hurricane Melissa ravaged it in October 2025. The U.S. government awarded CRS $60 million to provide food and hygiene products to more than half a million Cubans, according to a CRS press release.

State Department Senior Official for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs and Religious Freedom Jeremy Lewin joined CRS in Miami, Florida, for the sendoff, along with Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Senior Advisor Viviana Bovo.

“We are shipping pre-packaged boxes of commodities, so it is food, medical equipment, daily essentials, hygiene kits,” Lewin said in a Local10 interview at the sendoff. “The reason they did not want to accept is it admits what everyone knows, which is it is a government that is incapable of providing for its own people.”

The U.S. has been offering assistance to Cuba for months, but the regime has refused aid, according to a May press release. The State Department’s July 20 report outlines how Cuba’s communist government has tried to turn the West against itself.

“The decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical life-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance,” the May press release read.

CRS is partnering with Caritas Cuba, the largest nongovernmental agency on the island that has partnered with CRS for more than three decades, to distribute the relief packages to vulnerable communities across the island.

“Families in Cuba are facing growing hardship as they struggle to put food on the table, access clean water and meet other basic needs,” CRS President and CEO Sean Callahan said in a press release. “This support will allow CRS and our long-standing partner, Caritas Cuba, to significantly expand humanitarian assistance through the Catholic Church’s trusted network, reaching vulnerable families with the help they urgently need.”