Uruguay’s first legislator of Cuban origin speaks with DIARIO DE CUBA about the bills she has introduced, the Cuban regime’s “missions,” and her entry into politics.
By Yusimi Rodriguez Lopez (Diario de Cuba)
HAVANA TIMES — On March 10, Leydis Aguilera became the first legislator of Cuban origin in Uruguay’s history. She arrived in the country in 2013, where, she says, she discovered freedom. On April 14, she introduced her first legislative proposal: a bill establishing residency based on established ties to the country for immigrants. On October 7, she introduced her second proposal, which seeks to protect foreign workers in Uruguay.
Both proposals address issues traditionally championed by left-wing parties. However, Aguilera is an alternate member of parliament for the National Party, a center-right political party founded 190 years ago. It is Uruguay’s oldest party and one of the oldest in the world. Aguilera spoke with DIARIO DE CUBA about this apparent contradiction and other topics.
“An issue of protecting rights and respecting people’s dignity”
Regarding her first bill, the legislator points out that, according to data from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), there are more than 30,000 asylum seekers in Uruguay. Eighty-nine percent are Cuban.
“There are more than 3,000 people seeking asylum who have been unable to obtain permanent residency under the current regulations. That is what the bill seeks to address: enabling them to obtain permanent residency. This would provide them with legal stability. Some people have their own businesses but cannot access bank loans,” she explains.
“This is an issue of protecting rights and respecting people’s dignity,” the legislator says. She welcomes the fact that her bill exerted “significant legislative pressure,” prompting the Uruguayan government to establish a special residency mechanism based on established ties to the country through a decree dated October 8, 2026. Nevertheless, she believes this is not enough.
“I still consider this decree a little patch-up job. It is temporary; it is not a permanent solution to the problem. Uruguay needs to sit down, engage in dialogue, and take action. It needs genuine public policies aimed at addressing migration,” she says.
On Wednesday, October 15, Leydis Aguilera met with members of the Committee on the Constitution, Code, General Legislation and Administration, which consists of eight lawmakers from different political parties.
During the meeting, which she described as “quite interesting” in subsequent remarks to DIARIO DE CUBA, she presented her bill, defended it, and answered questions.
“The next step is for the committee to conclude its consideration of the bill and then send it to the House of Representatives for consideration by the chamber as a whole, rather than by the full assembly in plenary session. So we are waiting to see how it proceeds. But that initial step of getting it moving within the committee has already taken place,” she explains.
“We cannot wash our hands of the matter”
Regarding her second bill, the legislator makes it clear that its primary focus is on professionals, especially healthcare workers, whom the Cuban regime sends abroad and from whose salaries it withholds as much as 90%.
In Aguilera’s view, the so-called “missions” have “two sides of the same coin.” One is “the tremendous work carried out by all these brigades.” The other is the “lack of protection, the confiscation of documents and wages, and the control” imposed on the workers.
“The bill aims to regulate the situation of all personnel working within these medical brigades. In other words, it would establish clear, transparent contracts directly with the individuals, ensure that they are paid directly, and prevent Cuba’s regime from withholding their salaries afterward,” she explains.
At the beginning of October, DIARIO DE CUBA reported that, following talks with the United States and Cuba, Uruguay’s government had announced that social security benefits and stipends would be paid directly to the professionals rather than channeled through the cooperation agreement with the Cuban government side.
Aguilera criticizes the lack of a mechanism to verify that the professionals actually keep the money. Uruguay’s foreign minister, Mario Lubetkin, said the country would not be responsible for what happened to the stipends once they had been handed over to the professionals.
In several “missions,” governments pay Cuban workers directly, after which the workers are required to remit most of the money to Havana.
“We cannot wash our hands of the matter like Pontius Pilate,” Aguilera insists. She emphasizes that her bill seeks to ensure that payments are “direct, traceable, and verifiable.”
She also considers it important to guarantee that there will be no reprisals against those who decide to leave the missions. She points out that the Cuban regime punishes this decision by prohibiting those who leave from returning to Cuba for eight years.
From the Cuban regime’s missions to learning “how laws, democracy, and freedom are defended”
Aguilera has firsthand knowledge of what happens during Havana’s “missions,” because she first arrived in Uruguay as a member of a medical brigade, even though she is a telecommunications engineer.
The Cuban regime revoked her assignment and sent her back to Cuba after deciding that she could not be trusted. She managed to return to Uruguay thanks to the temporary residency that the country’s government had granted to the workers.
Speaking about her entry into politics, Leydis Aguilera says she began with social activism.
“Primarily, I was involved with the Afro-descendant population. I became a member of civil society organizations and served on the leadership teams of the Afro-Uruguayan House of Culture and UAFRO, an organization of Afro-Uruguayan technicians, students, and professionals, because I found it very interesting to see everything the Afro-descendant community had achieved in Uruguay.”
Through this work, she met Gloria Rodríguez of the National Party, Uruguay’s first Afro-descendant woman to serve as both a member of parliament and a senator. Rodriguez encouraged Aguilera to enter politics.
Aguilera is grateful to Rodriguez and to the National Party, which welcomed her and taught her “how laws, democracy, and freedom are defended.”
“I founded my own organization, called Tiempo de Avanzar, in 2023. From its very beginnings, it has been made up of people of various nationalities. There are Venezuelans, Peruvians, Mexicans, Russians, Cubans, among others, and, of course, Uruguayans born in Uruguay,” she says.
Defending immigrants, foreign workers, and Afro-descendants does not mean belonging to the left
The advancement of Afro-descendants, the rights of immigrants, and the protection of foreign workers are issues commonly found on the agendas of left-wing parties. In many countries, Leydis Aguilera might be perceived as a socialist. She is aware that some people may view her this way but argues that such a perception would be mistaken.
“I think one narrative and strategy that the left has managed to establish around the world is the idea that they are the great defenders of these causes and that they passionately champion what are misleadingly called ‘minorities’—a term I hate, although I use it here for context—and that they are the defenders of the rights of workers, women, the LGBTQ+ community, Afro-descendants, and migrants,” she says.
“I think other political movements that have genuinely been working very hard on these issues have failed to market themselves. We are not going to promote a false narrative. We are going to take action and get to work,” she says.
The legislator points out that the National Party has a human rights secretariat, which includes a committee for older adults, an ethnic and racial affairs committee, and a committee for people with disabilities.
She also recalls that Uruguay’s previous government, a coalition led by the National Party, created a program to help Venezuelans obtain asylum more quickly and promoted the residency-by-established-ties program.
She further emphasizes that the National Party is “a party with open doors,” adding that she is “an example” of this.
“I am not on the left. I am not a communist,” she stresses. “I come from communism, and I know what the left does. I know how they manipulate information, how they use those narratives, and how they indoctrinate people. And I know that the people who are actually doing well are those at the top. They talk about the people, but they are not the people. They could hardly be any further removed from ordinary people.”
First published in Spanish by Diario de Cuba and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.