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CBS News
21-07-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Miami's first Cuban-born Mayor Xavier Suarez plans 2025 run
Xavier Suarez, the first Cuban-born mayor of Miami and father of current Mayor Francis Suarez, told CBS News Miami Monday that he plans to file paperwork to run for mayor again in the upcoming 2025 election. "I'm energized," Suarez said in an interview with the Miami Herald, a news partner of CBS News Miami. Suarez, 76, said he intends to file his candidate paperwork at City Hall on Tuesday morning. His announcement came hours after a judge ruled it was unlawful for the city to postpone its November 2025 election to 2026 without voter approval. Suarez first made history in 1985 when he was elected as Miami's first Cuban-born mayor. He was reelected to a two-year term in 1987 and again to a four-year term in 1989. His son, Francis Suarez, is term-limited at the end of this year.


Forbes
09-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Foreign-Born U.S. Billionaires Discuss Trump's Immigration Policies
'I f it were up to today's administration, my family's hopes for living in a land of freedom and opportunity would have been significantly challenged,' says billionaire real estate developer Jorge Perez, referring to the government of his former friend and business partner, president Donald Trump. 'My family – and countless other Cuban families trying to escape the Castro regime – would have never been allowed to enter this country…and I wouldn't have been able to contribute to the development of cities like Miami, which was transformed from a sleepy tourist and retirement town into a thriving global center.' Perez, 75, was born in 1949 to Cuban parents in Argentina. He has built an estimated $2.6 billion fortune since moving to Miami in 1968, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1976 and teaming up on some Florida property deals with Trump, who called Perez 'the one person who could teach me something about real estate' in the forward to Perez's 2008 book, 'Powerhouse Principles.' But Perez has become an outspoken critic of Trump since 2017, when Perez told CNN he had turned down a request from the president to help build a Mexican border wall and called the idea 'an insult to all Hispanics and maybe all immigrants in this country.' Eight years later, Trump kicked off his second presidential term with promises to restart construction of the border wall and to launch the largest deportation effort of illegal immigrants in American history. Something must be done about illegal immigration, says Perez, who agrees that undocumented immigrants who violate the law after arriving in the U.S. 'should face appropriate consequences, including deportation.' But Perez makes it clear that he 'find[s] the actions of this administration deplorable' and that he believes 'those [undocumented immigrants] who have worked hard, followed the law and contributed to our communities deserve a fair path to citizenship.' The Jacksonville Jaguars' owner Shahid Khan, 74, who came to the U.S. from Pakistan at age 16 and almost immediately got a job as a dishwasher making $1.20 an hour ('more than 99%' of Pakistanis back home), isn't as blunt, but says a lot of 'innocent' people have been caught in Trump's immigration 'net' and that it's hurting the country. 'We need (immigrants) to survive,' says Khan, whose original equipment manufacturer Flex N Gate employs refugees and immigrants from such countries as Bangladesh, Tunisia and Morocco at its U.S. factories. Perez and Khan are two of 116 immigrants in the U.S. who have built billion-dollar fortunes from scratch since moving to America. (Another nine billionaire immigrants inherited some or all of their fortunes.) Forbes reached out to many of these entrepreneurs to get their points of view on immigration to the U.S. today, whether they think the country is still the land of opportunity it has always been and if they'd still pick the United States as the place to come. A dozen spoke about their own experiences, opening up about how being immigrants contributed to their success and the advice they have for newer arrivals. These immigrant billionaires appear to have come to America legally – though there is some question about whether South African native Elon Musk started working at a tech outfit before he had an appropriate work visa. Last week, Trump seemed to threaten Musk with possible deportation as part of an ongoing feud between the former political allies over Trump's 'One Big Beautiful' tax and spending bill. Some immigrant billionaires would likely not be allowed into America today under the Trump administration, which has also made legal immigration more difficult in a number of ways. For example, in January, Trump signed an executive order that indefinitely suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which admitted more than 100,000 people to the country during the last year of the Biden administration. Then, in June, Trump signed another executive order reviving a controversial travel ban from his first term that restricts or prohibits entry into the U.S. by citizens of 19 countries. That includes the birthplace of Perez's parents, Cuba, and Iran. The latter country is the birthplace of half a dozen U.S. billionaires, including AppLovin's Adam Foroughi and Clearlake Capital's Behdad Eghbali. It's also where the founder and former CEO of medical technology firm Masimo Corporation, Joe Kiani, and his family are from. 'We wouldn't have come [to the U.S. under the Trump administration] because not only is there a travel ban on my country of origin today, but we came at a time when America welcomed us with open arms and we felt wanted,' says Kiani, 60, who immigrated with his family as a child in the 1970s so that his father could study at the University of Alabama in Huntsville; they lived in a housing project for years. 'If my dad was thinking of getting his engineering degree today, he would go to a country that was as warm and friendly to foreign students as the U.S. was in 1973.' Another Iranian immigrant billionaire, biotech firm Summit Therapeutics' co-CEO Maky Zanganeh, 54, declined to comment on President Trump's policies but disagrees with Kiani, saying that she would have still moved to the U.S. under the current administration: 'At the end of the day, nothing compares to the American values of innovation, opportunity and the willingness to fund and support the best ideas.' Trump has plenty of immigrant billionaire backers, including one of his biggest donors, Israeli-born Miriam Adelson, who gave nearly $6 million to pro-Trump groups in 2024, and Mark Jones, a former truck driver born and raised in Canada who cofounded and runs Texas-based Goosehead Insurance. 'The Biden administration did our country a profoundly dirty move by opening the borders and just allowing people to flood in,' says Jones, 63, whose wife and cofounder Robyn Jones is also a billionaire immigrant from Canada. 'I'm very pro-immigrant but I do think that…if you have people coming into the country and then going on government assistance, that's very different than people coming into the country and [becoming] contributing members of society, paying their taxes [and] holding down jobs.' 'When I had a discussion with President Trump just before the election, I said to him, 'Why don't we get rid of all the criminals first?,'' says billionaire John Catsimatidis, 76, when asked about his friend and fellow New Yorker's immigration policy. 'Get rid of the drug dealers, get rid of the murderers, get rid of the people that are pushing people off the subway stations, and if there's an immigrant that's working seven days a week, maybe ICE should look away and let 'em work.' The New York grocery mogul and his family came from Greece when he was an infant; he grew up in a Harlem apartment, while his father worked seven days a week as a busboy, waiter and then chef at the since-closed Manhattan eatery Longchamps and Italian restaurants in Queens. Asked whether Trump's deportations are sweeping up hardworking people along with the criminals, Catsimatidis says he thinks 'mistakes get made but not intentionally.' As for whether Trump's promised crackdown on undocumented migrants is fueling anti-immigrant sentiment in the country, Catsimatidis says he doesn't think so. 'I'm pro-immigrant. I am an immigrant. But people want immigrants that are going to work as hard as their fathers and their grandfathers and not ones that want a free ride. I mean, I don't want to pay $300 a day for their hotel rooms when the veterans who fought for our country are left on the sidewalks of New York. That's not fair,' Catsimatidis says. Israeli born VC Oren Zeev, 60, is also in favor of Trump's focus on the issue of illegal immigration and says that being in favor of legal immigration is not anti-immigrant at all. 'In parallel to the crackdown on illegal immigration, legal immigration should be looked at and made easier for applicants who can contribute to the country. The US can only gain by attracting highly skilled and capable immigrants,' says Zeev, adding that new immigrants should never forget that being American is a privilege. 'If you choose to immigrate, you shouldn't try to hurt or destroy the country you immigrated to. If you support radical ideologies, stay home,' Zeev says. No matter where they stand on Trump's immigration policies, the billionaire immigrants surveyed by Forbes almost unanimously agree that the U.S. is still the best place to be. 'The great thing about America is that you go through ups and downs and eventually it turns out right,' says the Jacksonville Jaguars' owner Khan. 'It's still the promised land and one guy will not screw up the American dream. It's pretty bullet proof right now.' Additional reporting by: Kerry Dolan, Luisa Kroll, Chase Peterson-Withorn, Giacomo Tognini and Itai Zehorai. More from Forbes Forbes The Unlikely Path From Iranian Revolution To Billionaire Biotech CEO By Kerry A. Dolan Forbes The MedTech Billionaire Waging A Patent War With Apple By Katie Jennings Forbes Trump's Former Pal Plans To Beat Tariffs And The Immigration Crackdown By Giacomo Tognini Forbes The Musk Vs. Trump Feud Latest: Richest Man Trolls President Over 'Epstein List'—Again By Sara Dorn

Miami Herald
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Save the Olympia: Miami's most historic theater is at risk
The Olympia Theater is about to be given away by the Miami city commission this Thursday — quietly, with no input from cultural or downtown stakeholders, no public discussion of the options and certainly no transparent, charter-mandated procurement process. Instead of restoring one of Miami's most iconic historic landmarks, the city is preparing to hand it over to a charter school company. This isn't a cultural plan. It's a shortcut. And it risks permanently losing a civic treasure that generations have fought to preserve. I'm a Miami-based Cuban American who has spent my career building ambitious, sustainable arts institutions. I'm a Juilliard-trained pianist and co-founder of Le Poisson Rouge in New York, a venue that helped redefine what a performance space can be. I've launched orchestras, programmed world-class venues and transformed historic properties into financially viable, artistically vibrant centers of culture. Over the past several years, I've turned that focus to the Olympia. I've developed a comprehensive proposal for a full revival of the theater and surrounding property — a plan that includes a boutique hotel, a rooftop jazz venue, a cultural ground-floor bar and a dynamic, year-round performance program in the theater itself. This isn't just conceptual. It has institutional backing. Howard Herring, president of the New World Symphony — one of Miami's most respected cultural leaders — formally endorsed the proposal and offered support to help bring it to life. I've also consulted with leading preservation experts, including architect Richard Heisenbottle, to ensure the plan honors the theater's historic integrity. The Olympia Theater opened in 1926 as a silent movie theater, one of several along East Flagler Street. It is the only one that remains. The theater features famed opera hall architect John Eberson's Moorish/ Mediterranean Revival style. Throughout its long history, where it has also been known as the Gusman Center, the venue has served as a movie theater, concert venue and performing arts center known for its simulated night sky, complete with clouds and twinkling stars. It also achieved fame as the first air-conditioned building in the South. In 2022, when the city finally issued a Request for Proposals, it was structurally designed to fail: no financial incentives, no alignment with historic tax credits, no public-private partnership. A $50 million restoration with zero city support. Not surprisingly, no viable proposals came in. What followed was silence. The city made no effort to revise or reissue the RFP, and no transparent process has followed. Now, without meaningful public engagement or competitive evaluation, the Olympia is on track to be handed off for non-cultural use. Let's be clear: a charter school may be valuable in the right location—but it is not a strategy to preserve a historic theater. The Olympia is not a vacant building in search of purpose. It is an irreplaceable public asset. And bypassing cultural stakeholders to quietly repurpose it is a serious breach of public trust. So I am preparing a new proposal — a bid that meets the legal thresholds but also meets the moment. Because this theater still has a future. But only if we treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Miami deserves better. Cities that preserve their cultural landmarks build civic pride and lasting value. Cities that cast them aside become poorer — for generations. The Olympia can still be saved. But only if the public insists on transparency, vision and a commitment to cultural legacy. I've seen what's possible. And I'm not giving up on what this theater could be for Miami. Orlando Alonso is a concert pianist, conductor, and arts entrepreneur who has led international cultural projects and revitalization efforts in New York and Miami.


Miami Herald
19-06-2025
- General
- Miami Herald
Roaches coming out of the walls helped get a Coral Gables restaurant closed
The number of live roaches at a longtime Coral Gables restaurant this week exceeded the establishment's 30 years of existence as well as the limits of the state inspector. Havana Harry's says it serves 'Cuban American fusion' fare and boasts that the 2024 Michelin guide included it among the Best Cuban Restaurants in Miami. There will be no boasting, however, about Monday's inspection fail that closed the restaurant at the corner of LeJeune Road and Vilabella Avenue. A customer complaint brought an inspector to 4612 LeJeune Rd., where 13 total violations, two of which were High Priority, were found. (The inspection, like those of any restaurant, can be found on the Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation website, but under 'Havanna Harry S.') READ MORE: Walmart and Kroger chicken meals recalled after listeria outbreak deaths As for the aforementioned live roach count, it was at least 38. The two largest roach counts on the inspection weren't exact: over 15 roaches coming from inside a broken wall post in the middle of the kitchen, next to a breakfast/sandwich making area; and over 10 live roaches on a wall and electrical area behind reach-in cooler and freezers. Elsewhere, seven roaches were seen 'coming from behind a metal wall at the cookline next to the gas stove.' Another three roaches were 'coming from the wall where the electric box outlet is connect at the to-go order prep area.' As for dead roaches, there were three, one on an electric line behind the ice machine, where a live roach also strolled. The cookline exit door to the outside had a gap, perhaps hindering Havana Harry's ability to keep out vermin. At the sandwich prep area, 'a box of uncut lettuce was stored on the shelf' without being covered. So, open to any kind of contamination. The cookline floors were 'soiled with an accumulation of debris.' The cookline hood filters were described as 'soiled with grease buildup.' The storage shelf at a prep cooler across from the cookline was 'soiled with old grease and food residue.' 'Clean drinking glasses were stored next to the handwash sink' meaning they were clean dishes 'exposed to splash' contamination.


CBS News
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Iconic Latin Grammy-winning Cuban salsa singer Willy Chirino discusses fatherhood
Willy Chirino: Father of six and iconic Cuban salsa artist Willy Chirino, the iconic Latin Grammy-winning Cuban salsa singer, has been performing for more than half a century and is adored by Miami's Cuban-American community. Chirino and Eliott discuss why family is so important to him and how he juggles being a family man with his career.