Lee Issues Statement on Obama Administration Plans to Ease Travel to Cuba
For Immediate Release
Contact: Ricci Graham
(510) 763-0370
Oakland – Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) released the following statement today upon being briefed by the State Department on the Obama Administration’s plans to ease restrictions on Americans who wish to travel and remit funds to Cuba, and on the expansion of opportunities for airports to charter Cuban-bound flights.
The Administration’s plan calls on the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Homeland Security to loosen restrictions on the draconian travel restrictions that were imposed by President George W. Bush's administration and return to the "people-to-people policies" followed under President Bill Clinton.
- The President eases travel restrictions for opportunities for academic research, educational travel, cultural travel, and religious travel;
- The President restores educational travel and the people-to-people exchange programs that allow American and Cuban students the critical opportunity to directly exchange ideas;
- The President allows all Americans to send financial support to the Cuban people, which will support increased private sector activity;
- The President expands the number of airports that can serve the Cuban market.
“I have long supported the end of the travel ban and the end of the failed Cuban embargo” said Congresswoman Lee. “I led a Congressional Delegation to Cuba in 2009, during which I participated in a series of positive meetings with a range of Cuban officials including President Raul Castro and former President Fidel Castro. Upon our return, we in the Delegation pressed the Obama administration to make positive changes in US-Cuban relations.
“For that reason, I am extremely gratified to see the series of positive changes to come from this Administration, first in 2009 with its new policies for reuniting families and increasing telecommunications and humanitarian aid to Cuba, and today with the announcement of these encouraging policy changes.
“Cuba is the only nation in the world where Americans are forbidden to travel by their own government – the only one. Our government will not stop Americans from traveling to Iraq, or Afghanistan, North Korea, Sudan or Burma. Americans are free to travel to every nation except for a small tropical island 90 miles from Florida.
“The old cliché says that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.” The 50 year old Cuban embargo is one of our nation’s longest held foreign policy failures and I am pleased to see that the President is moving us in a new direction.
That approach is engagement – individual, cultural, and economic and I hope that this is just one more step on the road to normalized relations with our nearest Caribbean neighbor, Cuba.
# # #