Word: travel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...importance of this attitude shift can't be underestimated. Whenever Congress has tried in the past to strike down the Cuba travel ban - even when a majority of Americans said they wanted to get rid of it - the biggest obstacle has always been the staunch resistance of politically potent Cuban-American voters. But the newest bill, the freedom to travel to Cuba act, introduced this year in both the House and Senate, suddenly has Cuban-American backing - and as a result a decidedly better chance of passing. In a recent statement, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican and co-sponsor...
...reason is that while Cuban-American voters may still favor the trade embargo - though recent polls indicate support for that is fading fast, too, especially as more young Cuban Americans and recently arrived Cuban immigrants register to vote - they no longer see the travel ban as an inseparable component. In fact, they see lifting the ban as a way to throw a bigger ball into Havana's court, one that might oblige current Cuban President Raul Castro, Fidel's younger brother, to release more jailed dissidents or make other reform gestures...
...Another is the questionable legality of letting only one group of Americans travel to Cuba. Says Tomas Bilbao, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, a Miami-based organization of business and community leaders, "After the loosening of restrictions for Cuban Americans by the Obama Administration, it will be increasingly difficult for the government to respect the liberties of one narrow group while restricting them for a broader group." Democratic U.S. Representative William Delahunt of Massachusetts, who introduced the new travel-to-Cuba bill in the House, where it now has 180 co-sponsors, agrees: "Anyone can go to Vietnam...
...definition, which means I left because I found the political conditions to be deplorable," says Azel, who today is a senior research associate at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. "Until those conditions change, I will not return." But while he supports the travel ban, Azel recognizes the views of the old guard are changing. "Exiles themselves have changed," he says. "They have moved from a bellicose military approach and understand that now they must come at it from political processes." (See a photoessay about an artist expressing Cuban life...
...Like Azel, the Cuban-American delegation in Congress remains unmoved. For them, the travel ban, like the embargo, remains a valid foreign policy tool that denies resources to the Castros. "If we want to give the regime a lot of money to relieve the pressure, then we could have all the travelers in the world sitting in hotels smoking cigars or drinking Cuba libres," says Democratic New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, who calls that rum-and-Coke drink "an oxymoron." He insists that lifting the travel ban will do nothing to "create democracy or respect for human rights...