FIU Survey Highlights Diverse Views Among Miami's Cuban Americans on U.S. Cuba Policy

At the end of October, Florida International University (FIU) released its annual survey focusing on Cuban American perspectives, revealing a community often split by internal tensions and seemingly contradictory views. While many participants support maximum pressure on the Cuban regime, they also advocate for direct relief efforts aimed at the island's populace.

Directed by Drs. Guillermo J. Grenier and Qing Lai from FIU's Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies, the survey included responses from 1,004 adult Cuban Americans residing in Miami-Dade. Conducted between September 4 and 29, the poll has a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points.

This marks the sixteenth iteration of the longest-running survey of the Cuban community in South Florida, consistently conducted since 1991.

Contrasts in Policy Preferences

Regarding pressure tactics, 77% of those surveyed endorse a strategy of maximum pressure on Cuba's government. Meanwhile, 73% support U.S. military intervention to topple the regime, with 43% favoring covert CIA operations, and 65% back blocking oil imports to the island.

Conversely, there is widespread support for humanitarian measures within the same community: 73% advocate for unrestricted sale of medications, 70% for food sales, and 74% are in favor of U.S. assistance to Cuba's private sector to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

Humanitarian Relief vs. Political Pressure

This juxtaposition of pressuring the regime while providing relief to the people characterizes the collective stance of Miami-Dade Cuban Americans. The group is evenly split—50% agree that the suffering of the Cuban people is an acceptable cost for regime change, although "strongly disagree" is the most common individual response at 37%. Among Republicans, however, 70% deem this cost acceptable.

Migratory and Electoral Perspectives

On immigration, there is a strong consensus against deportations; 76% disapprove of deporting Cubans without criminal records, including 63% of Republicans. Additionally, 87% call for resuming immigration benefits processing for Cuban residents in the U.S., with similar support across party lines—Republicans (86%), Democrats (90%), and Independents (86%).

Significant differences emerge among subgroups. Those who arrived in the U.S. post-2020, making up 4.7% of the sample, show markedly different positions than historical migrants: 92% strongly oppose deportations, 96% support economic welfare policies for Cuba, and 82% endorse a multiparty system including the Communist Party. Migrants arriving before 1995 are more aligned with hardline policies.

Economic Concerns Dominate Priorities

Published just days before Florida's legislative elections, the survey reveals that 68% of Cuban Americans plan to vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate. Among registered voters, 53% identify as Republican, 27% as Independent, and 18% as Democrat.

Interestingly, economic issues—rather than policies towards Cuba—top the community's list of priorities, scoring 4.78 out of five, followed by health (4.73) and immigration (4.35). Policies towards Cuba rank fourth (4.18). The approval rate for the Trump administration's Cuba policy stands at 66%, while its economic management receives a lower approval rate of 50%.

Perceptions of Change in Cuba

Regarding Cuba's potential for change, 29% of respondents believe it will never happen, while 22% expect it within a year. The most pessimistic group, those over 76, has 39% believing change will "never" occur.

Internal Cuban Opinions and Broader Context

The FIU survey's findings gain additional context when juxtaposed with other independent surveys conducted in 2026, which gather insights from thousands of Cubans on the island, albeit with varying methodologies and representativeness. A notable survey, the Cuba Survey, organized by independent media and civil society groups, gathered 42,263 valid responses, 58% from within Cuba.

Among these participants, 60.9% supported direct U.S. military intervention, and 64.9% favored the regime's overthrow by any means, including armed force. Of the responses from Cuba, 60.5% backed the latter, while 23.2% preferred a negotiated transition.

Other surveys offer complementary perspectives. The "FOCO Cuba: Opinion, Self-Censorship, and Civic Action" study by Cubadata for Diario de Cuba involved 2,214 island residents. It found that 60.4% considered political change urgent, yet 61.9% feared reprisals for expressing critical views, and 58.9% seldom discussed politics.

Similarly, the IX Report on the State of Social Rights in Cuba from the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, based on 1,318 face-to-face interviews, revealed 95% viewed the government's economic and social management negatively, while 77% demanded simultaneous political and economic transformations. Furthermore, eight out of ten respondents reported skipping meals due to lack of money or food.

Though these studies cannot be directly compared as they measure different populations, they highlight shared demands for change and differing views on achieving it.

The question of who bears the cost of pressure policies becomes particularly relevant. Guillermo J. Grenier, co-director of FIU's survey, noted in a November 2 analysis on OnCuba that the majority support among Cuban Americans for these measures does not indicate how long they are willing to sustain it without the anticipated political change.

For Cubans directly enduring the consequences of this strategy, Grenier pointed out a fundamental limitation of the Miami survey: "Those who pay that price do not appear in it."