Thousands of anti-Cuban regime protesters gathered outside the White House Sunday and stayed overnight into Monday to pressure Joe Biden to do more to address socialist Miguel Díaz-Canel's actions against the people of Cuba.
The group stayed into the night for a planned candlelight vigil at midnight to mark the 26th of July Movement, a Cuban national holiday commemorating the 1953 attack when Fidel Castro led his first attempt to overthrow then-Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
'I'm 27 and I never thought I would live to see something like this,' Alex Perez, a Florida resident who came to the United States from Cuba seven years ago, told the Miami Herald as he joined the protest in Washington,D.C.
'We need to make sure there's pressure for people who didn't have to go through what I went through to know what's going on in Cuba,' he added.
Miami Republican Representative Maria Elvira Salazar joined the candle and cellphone light vigil on Sunday night. More elected officials are expected to join protests on Monday.
Thousands more protesters are expected to arrive in the nation's capital on Monday, according to Maria Fundora, who leads a Texas-based group called Cuba Libre that provides legal assistance to Cubans making asylum claims.
Anti-Cuban government protesters held a candlelight vigil outside the White House overnight to mark the 26th of July Movement as thousands showed up in Washington D.C. over the weekend to demand President Joe Biden take action in Cuba
Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (pictured center) joined the protests on Sunday and more elected officials are expected to join on Monday
Protesters holding Cuban and American flags held demonstrations into the night in front of the White House, which is lit up red, white and blue to celebrate the U.S. Olympic Team
A demonstrator dressed in the military outfit of Fidel Castro points a wooden stick with fake blood on it at a fellow protester
Fundora, 59, told the Herald that at least 18 buses left from Miami and only three had arrived in Washington by Sunday evening. She said caravans from Tampa and Texas are also on the way.
She advocated for military intervention in Cuba, and said Biden's response to the protests in Cuba so far and said his inaction 'guarantees a Trump 2024 ticket.'
The protests come as Cuban-Americans claim Biden isn't doing enough to push back against the island's socialist regime violently retaliating to demonstrators earlier this month who marched in the streets in the midst of food, vaccine and medicine shortages in the pandemic.
Cuban authorities have arrested hundreds of demonstrators, activists and journalists after protests erupted on July 11 across the country amid an economic crisis, scarcity of basic goods, lack of freedoms – all happening around the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of July 14, one person was confirmed dead, but dissident group Cuban Decide estimates five were killed in the clashes. Hundreds of others reported injuries.
Busloads of thousands of protesters from around the country arrived in Washington, D.C. over the weekend to pressure Biden to do more following violent clashes between anti-government protesters and Cuba's socialist regime
A woman painted green and dressed as the Statue of Liberty with bloody hands, a sewn-closed mouth and the Cuban flag at the bottom of her dress stands in protest outside the White House
Two protesters engage in a dramatic demonstration of the violence between the Cuban people and
