Non-Cubans have found ways to visit island for years

Posted on Saturday, 04.25.09
Non-Cubans have found ways to visit island for years
Despite decades of barriers to Americans who wanted to visit Cuba, some
non-Cubans have been going to the island for years.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY AND TRENTON DANIEL
achardy@MiamiHerald.com

When Janee Blackwell followed a friend to Cuba in 2005, she fell hard
for a local named Daykel Cifuentes, the kind of guy who opened doors,
showed her waterfalls and made her smile.

But because of U.S.-Cuba policy, theirs is a very complicated
relationship. She lives in Kendall with the couple's three infant
children; he's still in Havana. They've been long-distance dating since
they met.

Despite decades of barriers that have tried to block citizens of both
countries from visiting, Blackwell is among the untold numbers of
non-Cubans who have been visiting the island for years, hopping on
round-about flights from the Bahamas, Mexico and elsewhere -- sometimes
in violation of federal law. They are more than hedonism-seeking
tourists. They have family and other strong ties there.

''Having this kind of relationship is a big strain for me -- emotionally
and financially,'' said Blackwell, 37, a Chicago native who works as a
recruiter for her family-run information technology business.

Cuba travel executives say at least 10 percent of the more than 100,000
legal U.S. travelers to Cuba last year were non-Cuban.

PRESSURE TO OPEN UP

The Obama administration's new family travel regulations sparked
widespread interest in Cuba travel not only among Cuban exiles, for whom
the policies were enacted, but among U.S. citizens and residents who
have relatives in Cuba or simply are curious about the Communist-run island.

Activists who want an end to the general Cuba travel ban have renewed
campaigns aimed at persuading President Barack Obama to let all
Americans travel to the island.

''Cuban Americans are now able to travel, but a huge lot of us are not
able to travel to Cuba and our fundamental rights are still being
denied,'' said Mavis Anderson, senior associate at the Latin America
Working Group, a Washington organization that advocates for unrestricted
Cuba travel.

The new rules allow anyone with family in Cuba to visit, and also allow
anyone who lives in a household with a Cuban American with family in
Cuba to visit as well.

Cindy Polo-Serantes of Miami Lakes, whose family came to the United
States from Colombia, is excited about the new rules because as the wife
of a Cuban American she can also travel to Cuba.

''He has cousins, uncles, aunts,'' said Polo-Serantes, spokeswoman for
the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority. ``He has a lot of his family down
there.''

She and her husband, Alfredo Serantes, began talking about a trip soon
after the White House announcement. ''He's always wanted to go back to
see where he came from,'' said Polo-Serantes of her husband, who left
Cuba when he was 2.

Beth Boone of Miami and Jared Carter of Vermont were not born in Cuba,
but they are making plans to travel to the island under the new family
travel policies.

Boone booked her June trip April 13, the day the White House lifted the
last remaining family travel restrictions. Carter began planning the
trip the same day with his Cuban-American wife to see her family. They
plan to go immediately following his graduation from Vermont Law School
in May.

''I'm thrilled, as you can imagine,'' said Boone, who last year joined
others at a news conference at the Democracy Movement office in Miami to
denounce the Cuba travel restrictions that limited visits to once every
three years.

``But the long dark winter is over. The next step is lifting travel
restrictions for all Americans, and soon after that, ending the failed
embargo.''

Boone, who is married to a Cuban musician on the island, was last in
Cuba with their infant son in 2007 and, under now-defunct Bush-era
restrictions, they would have not qualified to return until 2010.

Now they can go back and forth whenever they want -- so long as Cuba
approves a visa.

LEGAL CHALLENGES

Legal experts familiar with the travel issue said that Americans who
have no family in Cuba may file lawsuits to lift the general travel ban.

''President Obama's action certainly could inspire legal challenges,''
said Anjana Samant, staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional
Rights in New York. She said, however, that the center was not aware of
any pending legal challenges.

In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, upheld Cuba travel
restrictions on U.S. citizens in a case filed by professors at Harvard
and Boston universities, a high school teacher, a lawyer and religious
leaders.

The narrow court majority said U.S. foreign policy concerns about Cuba
outweighed Americans' constitutional right to travel.

At least two bills are pending in Congress aimed at lifting the general
Cuba travel ban, which President Reagan re-imposed in 1982 after
President Carter in 1977 loosened controls, sparking a brief tourist
boom in Cuba.

For now, however, the only legal travelers to Cuba are those who have
family members on the island. Journalists, professionals and academic
researchers may also travel if Cuban authorities honor their request.
And until the Obama administration issued its rules last week, family
travel to Cuba had been restricted -- to once every three years under
the Bush administration, then to once a year last month.

BIDING THEIR TIME

After Blackwell met Cifuentes in 2005, she returned to the island as
often as she could, traveling through the Bahamas. She worried only a
little that she might get caught and fined by the Office of Foreign
Assets Control with the U.S. Treasury Department.

Then she got pregnant twice.

These days, with her 2 ½-year-old twins Michael and Robert and Daykel
Jr., 16 months, she is more reluctant to travel to Cuba -- and yet also
more willing. She can't afford any steep penalties, but she also wants
her children to see their father.

''I will do anything so that my kids can visit their father,'' Blackwell
said in the living room of her Kendall home. The twins, wearing matching
plaid shorts and blue and green T-shirts, squirmed on the couch.

Under Cuban law, Cifuentes, 28, must wait five years to leave the
island. After he applied for a visa, he was forced to give up his job as
a physical therapist's assistant. He depends on odd jobs.

Cifuentes now has only a year and a half to go until he's able to leave
under Cuba's rules.

After he lands in South Florida, he and Blackwell plan to marry.

''I will feel like my family is complete,'' Blackwell said. ``My kids
will have both their parents here, and I will feel like my life is not
on hold.''

Non-Cubans have found ways to visit island for years - Front Page -
MiamiHerald.com (1 May 2009)

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