Early last week, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a sweeping overhaul of longstanding travel and gift restrictions enforced on Cuban American families.
In a move he described as a “basic right” and step toward “grassroots democracy” throughout Cuba, the president lifted all restrictions on visits and monetary aid between Cuban Americans and their loved ones on the island.
Obama also opened the way for American companies to provide telecommunications, radio, and satellite services to the country.
Congressman Kendrick Meek, a FAMU alumnus who represents many Cuban Americans in his Miami district, responded with words of support and caution.
He applauded the president’s decision to let Cuban and Cuban American families see more of each other.
“I have always supported the Clinton policy of allowing Cuban Americans to visit loved family members on the island nation and was strongly opposed to the decision by President Bush to reverse that policy in 2004,” Meek said. “Under the Bush policy, by being allowed to visit Cuba once every three years, Cuban Americans were given a false choice and often faced an impossible decision: Either to visit a gravely ill family member or attend their funeral. That policy did not reflect American values and my position has remained that families should not be further punished for living under the Castro regime.”
However, Meek asked Obama to rethink his position on remittances, or financial transfers, between Cuban Americans and their relatives living under Raúl Castro’s government.
“Since the Castro regime controls all movement on the island nation, I am concerned that when unrestricted remittances are allowed to flow from hardworking Cuban Americans in Florida and throughout the United States to their family members in Cuba, the Castro government will confiscate a high percentage of those dollars further propping up a regime that suppresses human rights, freedoms and personal mobility,” Meek stated. “To have remittances meant for family members in Cuba siphoned off by the regime in Havana would be a deep insult to Cuban Americans everywhere and it is a practice the Cuban government should end.”
Obama carried the state of Florida in Election 2008, even though 65 percent of the state’s Cuban American voters backed Republican candidate John McCain. Meek is vying to become Florida’s first black U.S. senator and is working hard to peel as many Cuban American votes away from the GOP as possible.
Nationwide, two-thirds of Cuban Americans support Obama’s Cuba policy changes.
In a move he described as a “basic right” and step toward “grassroots democracy” throughout Cuba, the president lifted all restrictions on visits and monetary aid between Cuban Americans and their loved ones on the island.
Obama also opened the way for American companies to provide telecommunications, radio, and satellite services to the country.
Congressman Kendrick Meek, a FAMU alumnus who represents many Cuban Americans in his Miami district, responded with words of support and caution.
He applauded the president’s decision to let Cuban and Cuban American families see more of each other.
“I have always supported the Clinton policy of allowing Cuban Americans to visit loved family members on the island nation and was strongly opposed to the decision by President Bush to reverse that policy in 2004,” Meek said. “Under the Bush policy, by being allowed to visit Cuba once every three years, Cuban Americans were given a false choice and often faced an impossible decision: Either to visit a gravely ill family member or attend their funeral. That policy did not reflect American values and my position has remained that families should not be further punished for living under the Castro regime.”
However, Meek asked Obama to rethink his position on remittances, or financial transfers, between Cuban Americans and their relatives living under Raúl Castro’s government.
“Since the Castro regime controls all movement on the island nation, I am concerned that when unrestricted remittances are allowed to flow from hardworking Cuban Americans in Florida and throughout the United States to their family members in Cuba, the Castro government will confiscate a high percentage of those dollars further propping up a regime that suppresses human rights, freedoms and personal mobility,” Meek stated. “To have remittances meant for family members in Cuba siphoned off by the regime in Havana would be a deep insult to Cuban Americans everywhere and it is a practice the Cuban government should end.”
Obama carried the state of Florida in Election 2008, even though 65 percent of the state’s Cuban American voters backed Republican candidate John McCain. Meek is vying to become Florida’s first black U.S. senator and is working hard to peel as many Cuban American votes away from the GOP as possible.
Nationwide, two-thirds of Cuban Americans support Obama’s Cuba policy changes.
He's just pandering to the Cuban-American vote in south Florida. If we can have normal relations with china and Russia, we can have normal relations with Cuba.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Our policy toward Cuba makes no sense.
ReplyDelete