Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) took to social media Monday to celebrate her daughter Isra Hirsi's trip to Cuba as part of an international leftist convoy that visited the island nation in a show of support for its 67-year-old communist government. Omar called herself "incredibly proud" of Hirsi and the other participants, even as a nationwide blackout left ordinary Cubans without electricity over the weekend.
The trip, organized under the banner of the "Nuestra America" convoy, brought together a roster of left-wing figures from multiple countries. The convoy's stated purpose was delivering "humanitarian aid." But its participants spent their time praising the Cuban regime and blaming U.S. policy for the island's misery, not the decades of communist mismanagement that created it.
Omar's gushing praise for her daughter's role in the effort tells you everything about where the Minnesota Democrat's sympathies lie. Not with the Cuban people who can't keep the lights on. With the regime that keeps them in the dark.
In a social media post reported by Breitbart News, Omar laid it on thick. She praised Cuba's record of sending aid abroad and training physicians, including, she claimed, her own childhood doctor.
"I am incredibly proud of Isra and everyone who made the trip to Cuba. They took tons of aid to make sure the people of Cuba knew that there are so many people across the world who stand in solidarity with them. Cuba has always sent aid to countries in need and has trained thousands of physicians across the world, including my childhood physician."
She wasn't done. Omar went on to call Hirsi "a brilliant young leader" and "an unflinching justice warrior."
"She inspires me and so many people with her leadership and dedication. I am forever fortunate to have her as my daughter but I am even more fortunate to know her as the unflinching justice warrior for justice she is."
Hirsi posted her own message Monday. She framed the trip as standing "against the oppressive blockade exacerbated by the Trump administration" and said she was "honored to make history." She wished her followers "Eid Mubarak" from the island.
Hirsi was hardly alone. The Nuestra America convoy assembled an international cast of leftist politicians, activists, and media personalities. Among them: Jeremy Corbyn, the British former Labour Party leader and current lawmaker; Pablo Iglesias, former head of the Spanish Marxist party Podemos; four elected leftist members of the European Parliament; and members of Code Pink, the anti-war activist group.
Streamer Hasan Piker also made the trip. While the rest of Cuba sat in a nationwide blackout over the weekend, Piker broadcast from inside a luxury hotel room. The contrast wrote itself.
Kneecap, a far-left Irish rap group, held a concert in Havana just hours before the blackout struck. The Cuban regime, for its part, praised the "solidarity" visit and the support of its foreign guests.
The convoy's organizers accused President Donald Trump of "strangling" Cuba through U.S. policies aimed at the Castro regime's human rights abuses. That framing, casting American sanctions as the source of Cuban suffering rather than more than 67 years of communist rule, is a familiar trick. Blame Washington. Excuse Havana.
Manolo De Los Santos, described as a prominent figure with the People's Forum, delivered a speech in Havana that Cuban journalist Magdiel Jorge Castro shared in a video Monday. De Los Santos praised Cuba for showing "what it means to create a genuine alternative to the horrors of capitalism and imperialism." He called U.S. policy an "unusual and extraordinary threat" and used the word "genocide" to describe its effects.
The People's Forum has drawn scrutiny before. The Breitbart News Foundation reported in October that the organization received millions of dollars in donations from tech billionaire Neville Roy Singham and his wife, Jodie Evans, who also cofounded Code Pink. The group has been described as a far-left organization with links to the Chinese Communist Party.
So the money trail runs from a billionaire with alleged CCP ties, through a far-left outfit, to a convoy praising a communist dictatorship. And a sitting U.S. congresswoman calls it inspiring.
Not everyone on the island welcomed the leftist tourists. Yoani Sánchez, a Cuban dissident and editor of the independent outlet 14 y Medio, condemned the convoy. She called the version of Cuba presented to the visitors a "theme park" and told the Nuestra America members to "go do ideological tourism somewhere else."
Sánchez's words carry weight that Omar's do not. She lives under the system Omar's daughter traveled to celebrate. She knows the difference between a luxury hotel room and a blacked-out apartment block. The convoy participants got the curated tour. Sánchez gets the reality, every day.
Omar's eagerness to publicly champion her daughter's communist solidarity tour fits a broader pattern. The Minnesota congresswoman has faced sustained scrutiny over her family's entanglements and financial dealings. Congressional investigators have opened probes into her finances after a DOJ inquiry stalled. Rep. James Comer launched an oversight investigation into companies tied to her husband after their valuation reportedly jumped from $51,000 to $30 million. Questions about her financial disclosures have dogged her for years, and Comer has publicly questioned her unexplained wealth.
None of that has slowed Omar down. She remains one of the most unapologetic voices on the progressive left, willing to praise authoritarian regimes while American taxpayers foot the bill for her seat in Congress.
Cuba's nationwide blackout over the weekend was not an accident of weather or bad luck. It was the predictable result of a command economy that cannot maintain basic infrastructure after nearly seven decades of communist control. The lights went out. The regime's foreign guests kept streaming from their hotel rooms.
Omar wants Americans to believe her daughter's trip was about solidarity with the Cuban people. But solidarity means standing with people who suffer, not with the government that makes them suffer. The convoy didn't challenge the regime. It gave the regime exactly what it wanted: a propaganda win from useful Western visitors who showed up, praised the revolution, and went home.
Isra Hirsi said she was "honored to make history." Yoani Sánchez, the dissident who actually lives under communist rule, had a better word for what the convoy was doing: tourism.
When a U.S. congresswoman calls a pro-regime junket to a communist dictatorship a point of family pride, the problem isn't just bad optics. It's a broken compass.
