Critics of communist Cuba say the delegation President Biden will send to Havana this week to renew talks that were halted by President Trump will provide the regime cover for its intensifying human rights violations.

The Department of State unveiled the plan on Friday. It is a step toward reversing the decision by Mr. Trump to designate Cuba as a state that supports terrorism. Mr. Trump made that move after Havana provided refuge to members of a leftist Colombian narco-terrorist group, the National Liberation Army.

Mr. Biden has been reviewing the designation since taking office. In May 2022, he loosened some Trump-era policies toward Cuba. The measures included the resumption of commercial flights to Cuban airports and the removal of limits on family remittances.

That pivot appears to flirt with violating the Helms-Burton — or “Libertad” — Act, signed into law in 1995 by President Clinton. The law seeks to ensure a “peaceful transition to a representative democracy and market economy in Cuba.” Section 205 mandates a whole host of reforms, as yet unachieved, as predicates for normalizing relations with the regime. 

The executive director of the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba, John Suarez, told the Sun that negotiations with Cuba “have not prioritized human rights beyond lip service and social media posts.” 

“Judging by prior efforts during the Obama, Clinton, and Carter administrations, the negotiations will delay a democratic transition in Cuba,” Mr. Suarez said. He emphasized that America should not “bow to political blackmail” and engage in Cuba’s “manipulative migration tactics.” 

A state department deputy spokesman, Vedant Patel, disclosed on Friday that one topic on the delegation’s agenda will be counterterrorism. The ensuing dialogue will aim to enhance America’s national security “through improved international law enforcement coordination” to protect American citizens, Mr. Patel added.

Mr. Trump’s designation mandates sanctions over and above those imposed on Cuba after Fidel Castro’s Communist revolution in October 1960. Resumption of talks could potentially result in the loosening of a host of this multi-tiered sanction regime, the executive director of the Miami-based think tank Cuba Archive, Maria Werlau, told the Sun. 

Last week, Mr. Biden announced that Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians attempting to cross the border illegally will be expelled. In exchange, America will take in 30,000 pre-approved migrants from these countries monthly, in addition to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants.The program is meant to address the  record number of migrants attempting to cross the border illegally. 

Ms. Werlau sees things differently, arguing that the policy weakens the peaceful pro-democracy resistance in Cuba and  promotes a “continuing exodus that provides increasing material support for the dictatorship.”

Cuba is facing a host of crises that stem from its poor handling of the pandemic and the government’s bungling of the economy. These missteps have led to food and medicine shortages. Queues have multiplied. The peso has shed much of its value and inflation has skyrocketed.

In response to this economic decay, anti-government protests erupted nationwide in July 2021, swelling to become the largest demonstrations since the 1959 revolution. In response, the regime clamped down on protests with violence and conducted mass arrests.

In a statement last month, Mr. Biden noted that there are “hundreds” of political prisoners in Cuba as a result of the July 2021 protests. Mr. Suarez, at the Center for a Free Cuba, insists that in the upcoming talks Washington should demand that “all political prisoners be released from Cuban prisons.” 

As Cubans flee the island in record numbers, American diplomats met with Cuban officials in April last year. During the negotiations, Havana vowed to restore order in the migration process, but lambasted American migration policies as “incoherent.”

Mr. Suarez calls on Mr. Biden to “shame the dictatorship and raise international awareness.” He explains that every president who has attempted to restore relations with Cuba “has had the Castro regime weaponize a migration crisis,” adding that Mr. Biden’s concessions last year fit that pattern.