Tipsheet

Marco Rubio Just Terminated the Legal Status of the Communist Behind Hasan Piker's Cuba Trip

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  July 02, 2026 3:45 PM

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has revoked the legal status of Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez, a Cuban national identified as a communist operative tied to a propaganda effort targeting U.S. audiences. Dominguez was reportedly involved in organizing progressive commentator Hasan Piker’s trip to Cuba, an effort that was designed to promote the regime and influence American opinion on communism. 

Rubio announced the move on X, noting that Dominguez was formerly affiliated and maintained ties with the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), a state-backed organization known for conducting foreign influence campaigns in the United States. Dominguez, along with his wife and son, is currently in federal custody pending deportation.

"For decades, the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People – or 'ICAP' – has been a vehicle for radical left-wing extremism and subversive foreign influence in the United States and across our hemisphere. ICAP is the Cuban regime’s premier influence and intelligence front group, exploiting its vast global network to spy on Americans, promote anti-Western propaganda, coordinate foreign influence operations, and organize revolutionary leftist movements around the world," Secretary Rubio wrote on X.

This week, I terminated the legal status of Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez, a former ICAP official who maintains ties with the organization. Lloga Dominguez and his wife and son are now in federal custody pending removal from the United States.

"America will never become home for foreign communists who peddle propaganda, run subversive influence operations, or support radical anti-American movements within the United States," he added. "Transact with ICAP and you will be sanctioned, prosecuted or deported from our country."

This comes just months after Hasan Piker, a now-prominent voice on the progressive left, toured communist Cuba in a propaganda effort, where he attributed the country’s dire conditions to the U.S. embargo and sanctions rather than the failures of its communist government.