Bill cracking down on Cuba-travel agencies passes

Source: Miami Herald

Bill cracking down on Cuba-travel agencies passes
Posted on Thu, May. 01, 2008
BY LAURA FIGUEROA
lfigueroa@MiamiHerald.com

TALLAHASSEE -- With three days left in the legislative session, Rep. David Rivera, a Miami Republican, was able to pass a controversial measure targeting travel agencies specializing in trips to Cuba.

Florida-based travel agents selling trips to Cuba -- or any country on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist nations -- will have to pay up to $2,500 in registration fees to the state and provide up to $300,000 in bond money under Rivera's measure, which cleared both the House and the Senate Wednesday night. The bill still must be approved by Gov. Charlie Crist.

Rivera's bill, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Carey Baker, a Eustis Republican, passed despite the protests of several Miami-based travel agents who visited the Capitol to lambaste the measure as ''political pandering.'' Several lawmakers questioned the need for state regulation of the agencies, which are already monitored by the federal government.

''This bill has little to do with terrorism.... This will make it more difficult and expensive for Cubans in my district to visit their families, their loved ones, in Cuba,'' said Rep. Michael Scionti, a Tampa Democrat.

Rivera has said the bill is necessary because the travel agencies are ``business partners with the Castro regime.''



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/516498.html

A Miami Republican who prodded President Bush to get tougher on Fidel Castro is one-upping the president: He's proposing to strip food stamps and health insurance from those who travel to the island.

Dubbed the "Travel and Commerce with Terrorist Nations Act," a bill proposed by State Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, would punish those who travel -- even legally -- to Cuba by cutting off access to Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance for a year.

Rivera said the legislation is aimed at stopping recent arrivals who come to the United States, apply for benefits and then travel back to visit Cuba.

Though such travel is legal, Rivera argues that the money spent on the island only helps prop up Cuban leader Castro.

"It's an issue of gratitude," Rivera said at a news conference Tuesday. "People are sick and tired of people living here, taking advantage of taxpayer generosity and then providing financial support to the Castro regime by traveling back to the island."

Under the bill, anyone who has lived in Florida for less than five years and travels to any country the U.S. Department of State lists as a sponsor of terrorism would be ineligible for state services for at least a year.

Besides Cuba, the countries include Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria and Sudan. Because direct charter flights from Florida to any of the other nations are essentially nonexistent, the bill ultimately applies only to Cuba.

<...>

The proposal illustrates the complicated landscape Bush faces as he tries to bolster his standing among the voting bloc of Cuban Americans who are key to his re-election effort.

Polls suggest that new restrictions that limit travel and cash remittances to families have been embraced by hard-line exiles, who had urged Bush to take a stronger stance against Castro or risk losing Cuban-American support at the polls in November.

http://barkbarkwoofwoof.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_barkbarkwoofwoof_archive.html



David Rivera is the blob beaming benevolently upon Mike Huckabee

So how does it grab you that Cubans who arrive in the U.S. IMMEDIATELY are eligible for food stamps, Medicaid, and U.S. taxpayer-financed Section 8 housing, as well as instant legal status (no border agents chasing them around, deporting them)?
These benefits and MORE are offered to ALL Cubans, AND NO OTHERS FROM ANYWHERE ELSE, no questions asked, if they show up on dry land without being caught in the water in the process. That means there's a permanent invitation extended to all Cubans to come here and enjoy many of the aspects of their lives back at home, if they can find a way to get here.

David Rivera wants to keep everyone from going back to Cuba to visit, as it diminishes the appearance of his story, and that of other knuckle dragging right-wingers, which depends on YOUR belief that they all ESCAPE from Cuba. How does it look if they go back and forth?

I'm glad that they're starting to devour their own in order to score political points. I really don't see any reason why Cubans living in this country should have travel rights that the rest of us don't have. If they wan't to be able to visit their families, they should either stay in Cuba, or else go to some other country that doesn't have these ridiculous travel restrictions. Those other countries probably wouldn't take them though, or wouldn't provide them with the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed in Miami. I guess they're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place (snort).

The children of Cuban(-American) immigrants, by and large, don't hold the same grudge against the Cuban government as their Batista loving grand/parents and want to visit their relatives in Cuba.

The newer and younger Cuban immigrants were raised in a socialist environment and have little or no animus toward their homeland and want to return to visit Cuba.

Both trends don't bode well for the maintenance of anti Cuba demagoguery.

the time of their first interview, before _Bush had gotten a chance to rachet up the restrictions on Cuban American travel to Cuba, had told the reporter that they were looking forward so much to going back for a small trip to see their loved ones in Cuba. They had already bought some small presents to take back with them.

I guess those presents are going to gather a whole lot of dust now before there's any chance they'll be able to visit Cuba again.

From a short article:

The problem is that Ms. Horta applied for residency instead of political asylum, said Ninoska Perez-Castellon, a spokeswoman for the Cuban American National Foundation. ''At that time, with all the publicity, it would have been a very good case for asylum, and her daughter would have a visa by now,'' Ms. Perez-Castellon said. ''Now reclaiming her child falls into a process that takes years.''

But Ms. Horta said that if the foundation ''moved mountains'' for Elian, it could do something to get her daughter out of Cuba.

Ms. Horta and Mr. Fernandez live in a small efficiency apartment. Ms. Horta works sporadically for a home-cleaning business, while Mr. Fernandez works in a warehouse making $600 every two weeks.

But they say they are grateful to be alive, and Ms. Horta looks forward to Sunday nights when she can talk on the phone with Estefani.

''She's well. She's happy, at least,'' Ms. Horta said. ''She says she misses me and asks me when I'm coming. I don't tell her I can't go. I say, 'Yes, yes. Soon we'll see each other.' ''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E5D71F3AF934A15752C1A9669C8B63

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The snip points to what you indicated, that recent emigres don't appear to be wildly charged politically, since the woman never appeared to consider declaring herself a political refugee, unlike the first waves of "exiles," who were completely identified with the Batista regime.

they'll also stop all British Airways flights into the USA just because they fly in and out of Havanna and provide holidays there too as do most European travel organisors /agents ?

I hadn't realised Britiah Airways were partners with "The Castro regime" If correct they just went up in my esteem.

CUBA.

But the USA, being the "land of the free"...


Wake up, America.

Causing Pain to seperated families.