Some South Florida voters would back lifting Cuba travel restrictions for exiles

   One of the findings in a poll released Wednesday in Miami is that a majority of registered voters surveyed in two hotly-contested South Florida congressional districts would support a presidential candidate willing to let Cuban Americans travel to Cuba without restrictions.

   According to the poll released by the Foundation for Normalization of US/Cuba Relations, 48 percent of surveyed registered voters in districts 21 and 25 are “more likely’’ to vote for a candidate for U.S. President who would allow Cuban-Americans to travel freely to the island.

   Thirty six percent in district 21 and 34 percent in district 25 would be less likely to support such a candidate. Seventeen percent in each district said they had no opinion. The margin of error: plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

   Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic Party presidential candidate has promised to lift current Cuba travel restrictions for exiles.

   Republican Cuban American brothers Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, who support the restrictions, respectively represent districts 21 and 25.

    In his speech to the annual Cuban American National Foundation Cuban Independence Day luncheon in a downtown Miami hotel on May 23, Obama said he would allow unfettered travel by exiles to Cuba -- along with money remittances to relatives on the island.

   “I will immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island,’’ Obama said. “It's time to let Cuban Americans see their mothers and fathers, their sisters and brothers. It's time to let Cuban American money make their families less dependent upon the Castro regime.’’

   In 2004, President Bush imposed travel and money remittance restrictions on Cuban Americans who have relatives on the island. Exiles now can only visit relatives in Cuba once every three years instead of annually and can send money only to close family members like spouses, parents or children instead of any relative.

    In his own speech to the Cuban exile community on May 20, presumptive Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain accused Obama of seeking to undermine the longtime U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.

   "Now Senator Obama has shifted positions and says he only favors easing the embargo, not lifting it,'' McCain said. "He also wants to sit down unconditionally for a presidential meeting with Raul Castro. These steps would send the worst possible signal to Cuba's dictators.''

Comments

[Harbourcay]

Let me give the US Government a newsflash-- I condser it a consitituional right of all Americans to travel freely ANYWHERE we choose to so long as we are not actively at war with that country-- we are not at war with Cuba, although I'm sure the bush admnistration would like to shift the hunt for WMD's to Cuba--- If I want to travel to Cuba-- I will travel with or without US permission-- should I be stopped by the USCG--- they had best be willing to kill and American citizen and wounded Vietnam vetren exercising his rights-- I won't give up my boat or my rights without a fight -- to the death if need be---

[j2tharome]

Any money that is put into the Cuban government goes straight into the top leaders pockets. The only restriction I would change is that Cuban-Americans can visit ONCE a year instead of every 3 years. Otherwise we need to send a message to Castro that he needs to change their ways for us to form any kind of diplomatic relations.

[J. Gonzalez]

As a Cuban-American who strongly opposes the current U.S. foreign policy toward my native country I will travel to Cuba without asking for a license from the OFAC idiots.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. proved to the world that citizens must engage in peaceful civil disobedience to bring down oppressive and unjust laws and regulations.

[millie sapru]

I'm a cuban american and left Cuba looking for freedom, and I find myself in a more totalitarian goverment than the Cuban ever was, I'll visit Cuba whenever I want I pay taxes and the salary of those idiots in Washington so what more do they want Millie

[linda chappelle]

No relatives in cuba, but I want to travel freely.