Activists of the Nuestra America Convoy aboard a ship. Photo: EFE.
Delegates returning from delivering humanitarian aid to Cuba reported interrogations and confiscation of equipment by immigration authorities, actions they describe as a strategy of government intimidation.
The Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila was also the victim of an arbitrary detention in Panama City while preparing to board a connecting flight to his country.
Members of the Nuestra América Convoy, a solidarity initiative that recently delivered 14 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba, denounced the US government for leading a campaign of harassment and intimidation within the US and Panama following the activists’ return from Cuba.
Through social media, it was reported that delegates arriving at the Miami airport are being detained at customs for exhaustive interrogations. Among those affected are high-profile figures such as Amazon labor leader Christian Smalls and journalist Katie Halper.
According to the reports, federal agents have proceeded to confiscate activists’ electronic devices. Members of the group indicated that this practice is not isolated, recalling that last Monday, other members, including human rights lawyer Noura Erakat, were also treated in a similar manner, which they describe as clear government intimidation.
Thiago Ávila’s illegal detention in Panama
Ávila’s communications team, who has more than 1.2 million followers on Instagram, reported that the activist was held incommunicado in Panama City after being subjected to interrogations and biometric procedures by hostile agents communicating in English.
“We know that what we bring on our boats is a drop in an ocean of Cuba’s needs, which has lived for more than six decades under the US blockade,” Ávila had stated upon his arrival in Havana last Tuesday.
The Nuestra América Convoy, inspired by the Global Sumud Flotilla that delivered aid to Gaza in 2025, managed to deliver solar panels, medicines, and food in an effort to alleviate the energy and economic crisis that Cuba is enduring to the US military naval blockade that has tightened the economic warfare imposed on Cuba for over 60 years and has prevented any oil from reaching the nation for months.
Ávila, who had already been deported by agents of the Israeli colony in 2025 after being intercepted in international waters while attempting to break the siege on Gaza, was expected to soon join a new maritime humanitarian mission to Palestine.
So far, neither Panamanian authorities nor US Customs and Border Protection have issued official statements regarding these procedures, which social movements have condemned as a violation of the right to free movement and solidarity among peoples.
Inspiring Nuestra América Convoy: 600+ Activists Deliver Aid to Cuba, Defying US Blockade
(Telesur)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/CB/SL
Cameron Baillie is an award-winning journalist, editor, and researcher. He won and was shortlisted for awards across Britain and Ireland. He is Editor-in-Chief of New Sociological Perspectives graduate journal and Commissioning Editor at The Student Intifada newsletter. He spent the first half of 2025 living, working, and writing in Ecuador. He does news translation and proofreading work with The Orinoco Tribune.
