Statement from Miami-Dade County Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez on the U.S. Supreme Court Hearing Regarding Confiscated Cuban Property

Enough is enough. For more than six decades, the Cuban Communist and Socialist Castro crime family has built its power and fortune through theft and repression, seizing homes, land, and businesses from the Cuban people and using that stolen wealth to sustain tyranny. Time did not erase those crimes, and it will not erase the victims’ right to justice.

The scale of that corruption is well documented. Forbes once estimated Fidel Castro’s personal wealth at roughly $900 million, reportedly exceeding that of the Queen of England at the time. That is the legacy of the Castro crime family: luxury built on stolen property while the Cuban people endured scarcity, repression, and poverty.

It is unacceptable for any company to profit from doing business with that regime especially on property taken illegally, often at gunpoint and under threats of prison, torture, or death. Stolen property does not become legitimate with time, nor does profit erase the injustice.

Today, the United States Supreme Court is hearing cases brought by American citizens whose property was confiscated by the Cuban dictatorship. This moment represents an important step toward accountability for generations of families who lost everything, and for the hundreds of thousands of exiles who rebuilt their lives here in Miami-Dade County.

Title III of the Helms-Burton Act was created for this purpose: to ensure that those who benefit from confiscated property are held responsible and that victims have a lawful path to seek long overdue justice.

As someone who came from that island and has seen firsthand what communism destroys, I stand firmly with every victim pursuing justice. Property rights, freedom, and democracy are inseparable, and justice delayed must never become justice denied.

Dariel Fernandez

Tax Collector 

Miami-Dade County