A Cuban refugee who fled Castro’s regime with just $10 and a watch is warning Americans that the same poisonous ideology that stole his childhood is now gaining ground in the halls of Congress.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) stood before reporters at the House Republican leadership press conference with a stark message: the smiling faces of America’s new socialist politicians mask the same brutal system that drove thousands to drown in the Straits of Florida seeking freedom.
“Communism robs you of everything,” Gimenez declared. “It robs you of your opportunity. It robs you of your life. It’s misery.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) didn’t mince words after hearing his colleague’s testimony. Americans who embrace communist ideology, he said, “are one of two things: either idiots, or evil.”
The press conference comes as self-proclaimed Marxist candidates Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier stand as Democratic Party nominees for New York’s Congressional Districts 7 and 13. They could be seated in Congress within months.
Republican Study Committee Chairwoman Rep. Lisa McLain (R-MI) set the stage for Gimenez’s remarks with a direct appeal to common sense.
“When people who have lived under communism warn us about what is happening, we actually should listen because they’ve been there,” McLain said. “Communism is not some rational theory dreamed up in a college classroom. It’s already been tried, and we already know the outcome.”
She pointed to the breadlines of the Soviet Union, political prisons in Cuba, and starving children in Venezuela as evidence of where Marxist policies inevitably lead.
Gimenez, who escaped Cuba’s communist regime with his family at six years old, singled out New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for special criticism.
“Mamdani reminds me of a young Fidel,” Gimenez said. “The smile, don’t let the smile fool you.”
The congressman detailed how the Democratic Socialists of America platform calls for eliminating the Senate, eliminating the presidency, and packing the courts. The goal, he explained, is “to create one body” of unchecked power.
“The promise that a free life is to come, and then you’re gonna have a free and open democracy, is false,” Gimenez warned.
If Marxism delivered on its promises, the congressman argued, refugees wouldn’t risk death to escape it.
“Thousands of people have died in the Straits of Florida seeking freedom,” he said. “If communism was so great, why would they risk their lives and get on makeshift rafts to try to make it to Florida?”
The congressman offered a grim summary of what communist systems actually deliver: “Everybody’s the same. Everybody is equally miserable. That’s the only thing that they give you.”
The warning comes amid a troubling pattern. Chevalier founded a group that called for the “total eradication of Western civilization.” On Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and killed approximately 1,200 people while taking 251 hostages, she attended an anti-Israel rally displaying signs reading “Resistance is Justified when People are Occupied.”
Valdez has referenced calls to “free Palestine” and “abolish ICE” while campaigning for Medicare for all and housing for all.
These candidates follow the 2025 electoral victories of Mamdani in New York City and Katie Wilson in Seattle, both self-proclaimed socialists.
Speaker Johnson framed the moment in stark terms: America is now “fighting communists in our own shores and radicals abroad.”
