Poll shows support for travel restrictions to Cuba

Posted on Tue, Oct. 03, 2006

Poll shows support for travel restrictions to Cuba
BY RUI FERREIRA and CASEY WOODS
cwoods@MiamiHerald.com

Cuban Americans in a local congressional district support travel
restrictions on tourism and family visits to the island, according to a
new poll exploring the views of the Cuban community in South Florida.

The poll, commissioned by U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart for his
district, indicates that 89.7 percent of the 400 Cuban-American voters
surveyed support retaining the U.S. restriction on tourism, while 85.2
percent back the current policy that prohibits Cuban nationals from
visiting the island more than once in three years.

Among those voters, 88.5 percent also supported the economic embargo
against Cuba, although those younger than 34 were less inclined to back
it. The time of their arrival did not make a significant difference in
attitudes towards those policies, according to the poll.

''It's impressive and admirable to see how the community is more united
than ever on the position that it's necessary to remain firm in favor of
democracy and against tyranny,'' Díaz-Balart said. ``This shows that the
Cubans have a very uniform posture in relation to Cuba policy.''

The respondents to Díaz-Balart's poll, conducted Sept. 25-30 by analyst
Dario Moreno, were all registered voters and 80 percent arrived before
the 1980 Mariel boatlift. They all live in Díaz-Balart's district, which
encompasses portions of South Broward and Central Miami-Dade down
through Palmetto Bay.

The poll's margin of error was not immediately available, according to
Díaz-Balart's office.

The Díaz-Balart survey's conclusions diverge on certain points from
those of another, broader poll released on Monday.

The previous poll, a Sept 14-20 survey of 600 Cubans in Miami-Dade and
Broward counties by Bendixen & Associates, indicated that the time of
arrival affected attitudes towards policies such as the restriction on
family travel. In the Bendixen poll, most of the early waves of exiles
backed such limits, while they were opposed by a majority of those who
came in the 1980's and after.

The key difference in the polls was that Díaz-Balart's poll only
surveyed registered voters, said Joe Garcia of the nonprofit group NDN,
which paid for the poll along with Bendixen & Associates.

''Cuban American registered voters tend to be older and much more
conservative,'' Garcia said. ``With our poll, we were trying to find out
what was going on in a broader swath of the community.''

In the Bendixen poll, 57 percent of those polled arrived after 1980.

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