The
Freedom to Travel Campaign
locate on page: Historic & Legal
Underpinnings | U.S. Licensing &
Enforcement | Repealing the Ban
| Impact on U.S. Economy | Impact
on the Cuban people
CIP's Freedom to Travel Campaign is dedicated to changing U.S.
policy towards Cuba by lifting the prohibitions on legal travel
by Americans to the island. We believe that the travel ban is
wrong because it is a policy that punishes the people of Cuba
and America:
·
Valuable federal funds are being diverted from tracking down terrorists
and are being used to track down and punish American tourists
who travel to Cuba (see Commentary:
Crackdown - The Bush Administration's campaign to stop legal travel
to Cuba, its impact on the fight against terrorism and the liberties
of American citizens).
· It denies Americans their constitutional right to travel.
· It denies profits to U.S. air carriers and others in
the travel industry and keeps them from creating jobs (see The
Impact on the U.S. Economy of Lifting the Restriction on Travel
to Cuba, a 2002 study by the Brattle Group, .pdf format 98k).
· The travel ban prevents the American people and the Cuban
people from meeting and learning from each other.
- August
3, 2003: CBS radio talks to world cyclist Joan Slote about
her 3-year ordeal with OFAC [download 5.32
MB mp3 file]
- Read
the testimony: July 15 Freedom to Travel to Cuba Forum
on Capitol Hill
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Historic
and Legal Underpinnings
- During
the Cold War the State Department banned American citizens
from using their passports to travel to a number of blacklisted
countries, including restrictions on expenditures of U.S. currency
for travel to blacklisted countries.
- In
1967, the Supreme Court ruled that restricting travel
was an infringement on the constitutional rights of U.S.
citizens.
- In
1977, President Jimmy Carter lifted the currency controls,
recognizing them as a de facto ban on travel.
- In
1982, the Reagan administration re-imposed the currency-cum-travel
ban.
- The
Reagan administration re-imposed the ban, arguing that the 1917
Trading with the Enemy Act allowed for currency controls
only during either a national emergency or war. Given that neither
condition existed in 1982, the administration grandfathered
in the national emergency declared in 1950 at the start of the
Korean War as grounds for reinstating the travel ban on Cuba.
- Thus
the Reagan administration was able to reimpose a de facto
ban on travel because if citizens cannot pay for their travel,
they cannot travel. The travel ban on Cuba remains to this
day.
-
The travel ban violates Article 12 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 13 of the
Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which protect citizens'
right to freedom of travel.
- The
travel ban violates the United States' commitment to the
free flow of people and ideas across national frontiers,
as set forth in the 1975 Helsinki Agreements signed by
the U.S., the Soviet Union and other states. These agreements
were seen as a key step towards opening up the Soviet Union
to broader contacts and concepts, and many believe this was
a major factor in the sweeping changes that ended the Cold War.
- In
response to the Cuban government's massive crackdown on dissidents
in spring 2003, the bipartisan Cuba working
groups in the Senate and House have offered legislation
to end the travel ban, reasoning not only that the ban violates
the fundamental rights of American citizens but that ending
the ban will, now more than ever, help open Cuban society.
Supporters of the bicameral, bipartisan legislation (S.950 and
HR.2071) include: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International,
'The Time is Now' coalition of more than 17 Cuban American advocacy
groups, the American Farm Bureau Federation, USA*Engage
as well as numerous other policy, human rights and religious
organizations around the country. [.
. . more]
Cubans eager to engage Americans |
U.S. Licensing and Enforcement
Under
the current regulations for travel to Cuba published by OFAC,
only certain categories of travel are theoretically allowed:
researchers, journalists, athletes, religious groups, university
groups, and full-time professionals whose itinerary will comprise
a full-time work schedule, and the nature of the work pertains
to Cuba (but not commerce) and has a likelihood of dissemination.
In
March 2003, OFAC announced the elimination of people-to-people
exchanges as codified into law by Congress in the 2000 Trade
Sanctions Reform Act (TSRA). The authors of TSRA, Reps.
George Nethercutt (R-WA) and JoAnn Emerson (R-MO) argue that
eliminating people-to-people travel undercuts
congressional intent. The new regulations change are sure
to hurt travel service providers and ground thousands of Americans
traveling with cultural, scientific, alumni and humanitarian
groups.
Cuban
Americans with immediate family still living on the island are
limited to one trip per year, which is why many Cuban Americans
travel to Cuba illegally. Though the Bush administration has
been at pains to demonstrate a harder line against the Cuban
government, the March 2003 amended regulations on Cuba travel
actually loosen restrictions on Cuban American travel, remittances
and per-diem spending in Cuba. The loosening of those restrictions
demonstrates that a majority of Cuban Americans now prefer humanitarian
engagement to economic strangulation of the island.
If
U.S. policy truly aimed to economically isolate Castro's Cuba--which
Treasury spokespeople repeatedly claim was the rationale behind
the recent elimination of people-to-people travel--the Bush
administration would necessarily have chosen the more unpalatable
option of shutting off the flow of nearly $1 billion in annual
remittances Cuban Americans send home to loved ones and dissident
activists.
As
for the non-Cuban American travelers, they must seek specific
licenses for travel to Cuba, as the burden is on the traveler
to prove he or she qualifies for the above categories, and the
licensing process can be a complex, time-consuming and mystifying
process. Applicants are regularly denied licenses or simply
never hear back for months.
Travelers
seeking a license should contact the Treasury Department's Office
of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC is charged with, among
other things, enforcing the travel ban on Cuba. This entails
screening license applications, and prosecuting violators of
the ban--who can be fined up to $50,000 and up to 10 years in
prison.
Since
the Bush administration took office there has been a marked
increase in rejected license applications and enforcement,
using such tactics as looking for Cuba travelers in gateway
airports (Cancun, Toronto, etc.) and even searching on the World
Wide Web for possibly unlicensed Cuba travelers. Ironically,
OFAC's enforcement activities have begun to resemble the very
repressive measures dissidents in Cuba complain of. Some members
of Congress find this a waste of taxpayer funds--that could
be better spent tracking terrorist funding networks. [More.
. .].
Repealing the Travel Ban
The
travel ban was once a matter of Presidential prerogative, but
no longer. Members of the House of Representatives who pushed
for the sale of food and medicine to Cuba struck a compromise
with several influential House supporters of the embargo. One
of the compromise measures was the codification into law of
the travel ban, previously only a ban by presidential decree.
Thus, it will take a congressional repeal of the travel ban
to remove it.
Despite
ever growing bipartisan majorities in the House voting to
end the travel ban, key embargo supporters have managed to hijack
the process for 3 years in a row. This year there are also bipartisan
rumblings in the Senate against the ban and other dated Cuba
sanctions. President Bush has voted to veto any measure pereceived
as a loosening of the embargo on Cuba.
Impact on U.S. Economy
- If
the travel restrictions on Cuba were lifted," U.S. economic
output would expand annually by $1.18 billion to $1.61 billion
over time. This expansion would create from 16,888 to 23,020
new jobs." [Source: The Impact on the U.S. Economy
of Lifting the Restriction on Travel to Cuba, a 2002 study by
the Brattle Group, .pdf format 98K]
Impact on the Cuban people
The
travel ban, more than enforce the U.S. government's dated policy,
has succeeded in worsening the adverse living conditions for
the Cuban population on the island.
As
Cuba turns ever more to the dollar, the Cuban people are faced
with the dilemma of how to get dollars in order to pay for the
medications and food that are no longer readily-available. Clearly,
this is a failing of the Cuban economical model, but the fact
remains that tourists bring with them a demand for lodging
and services that the government can neither control or accomodate.
More tourists will mean more Cubans privately gaining from their
presence. The average U.S. visitor can tell that those who claim
tourists do not interact with the Cuban people or that tourism's
dollars do not trickle down to ordinary Cubans are simply mistaken.
The
Cuban people are hungry for news from the outside world, particularly
from the United States. No matter their politics, Cubans are
a cultured, curious people who believe that the island is inextricably
tied to its neighbor to the north. They are eager to talk to
Americans in their streets. Some argue that the best way to
promote positive openings in a society is to interact with it.
This was the idea behind the Clinton administration's Cuba travel
policy of "people to people" contacts. This
was also the idea the many exchanges that took place between
the Soviet Union and the United States years ago.
The
Cuban people in no way benefit from the economic isolation of
the island. Former Senator Jesse Helms promised 7 years ago
that within months of the signing of the Helms-Burton Act, we
could all say "Adios, Fidel." Yet, far from achieving
his goal, Helms only guaranteed the return to influence of hardliners
in the Cuban government, slowing the reforms that began in the
1990's.
'People to people' contacts |
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