Billy Corben

His latest have Cubans fled one authoritarian state for another.

is now available, and it's a hell of a read.

Let me just give you this passage.

The new version of freedom flights has been upon us in recent years, ever since 2021, when anti-government rallies filled the streets.

You might all remember Patria y Vida in Cuba.

and people protesting the oppressive policies, the lack of medicine and food.

Castro had died five years before, but the Communist Party retained its grip on power, and it put down the protests harshly, jailing and beating hundreds of demonstrators.

Since then, an estimated 18% of Cubans, as many as 2 million residents, have left.

This represents the largest outflux in the 66-year span of the tumultuous revolution.

By comparison, because it's amazing.

John Lee is a very intuitive writer because I was thinking the same thing.

I'm like two million.

I'm like when the Mariel boat lift happened, that was about one hundred and twenty five thousand Cubans arrived in South Florida over the span of about six to eight months or so.

And that was considered a cataclysmic humanitarian and economic crisis.

It nearly bankrupted the four southernmost counties of Florida, Monroe, Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

And now two million have effectively fled the island.

But that's how bad shit has gotten in Cuba.

John Lee's one of the most striking things about the story is your dispatch to Cuba and how you describe what's going on there.

Can you tell us about the plight of the Cuban people today?

Because it sounds horrific, if not worse than ever.