The Biden administration outlined a number of efforts related to its Cuba policy on Friday -- including new sanctions and assistance to Cuban dissidents -- as President Joe Biden met with members of the Cuban-American community and key members of Congress at the White House. "Earlier this month Cubans took to the street in a show of the will of the people of Cuba. The regime responded with violence and repression, mass detentions, sham trials and people disappearing who have spoken out," Biden said during the meeting, also detailing US efforts related to remittances, staffing at the US embassy in Cuba and internet access on the island. "Cuban-Americans are hurting ... because their loved ones are suffering. And it's, quite frankly, intolerable."

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control announced the sanctions earlier Friday, designated by the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The sanctions target Cuba's National Revolutionary Police -- the country's primary law enforcement body; Oscar Callejas Valcarce, the director of the police; and Eddy Sierra Arias, the police's deputy director. The sanctions, the Treasury Department said, "were made in connection with actions to suppress peaceful, pro-democratic protests." Biden said the administration is working to assist political dissidents, address the US halt to remittances, increase US embassy staffing in Cuba and restore connectivity on the island.

The President indicated that the US is "increasing direct support for the Cuban people by pursuing every option available to provide internet access to help...the Cuban people bypass the censorship that's being mandatorily imposed." Biden had previously said his administration was working with civil society organizations and the private sector "to provide internet access to the Cuban people that circumvents the regime's censorship efforts."

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