Cuba travelers face a deadline to return to U.S.

Posted on Sat, Jun. 19, 2004

CUBA


Cuba travelers face a deadline to return to U.S.

Hundreds of Cuban Americans will be considered illegal travelers to Cuba if they do not return from the island before new travel rules take effect on June 30.

BY CHRISTINA HOAG
choag@herald.com


Operators of charter flights to Cuba are scrambling to schedule flights to ferry hundreds of Cuban Americans back from the island before new travel regulations make them illegal visitors subject to $7,500 fines as of June 30.The agencies are also trying to contact Cuban Americans already on the island who may not know that they have to return before the more restrictive rules take effect.

''It's quite a panic right now,'' said María Teresa Arau, chief executive and vice president of ABC Charters in Miami, one of seven local companies that operate flights to Cuba. ``I'm in the process of contracting more planes, but I don't think I'll be able to accommodate everyone.''

The new rules, which have been pending for months, were published Wednesday in the Federal Register. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which regulates travel from the United States to Cuba, said the two weeks until they take effect allow travelers time to change schedules.

''We encourage folks to use this time period to make travel arrangements to get back to the U.S.,'' said Molly Millerwise, a Treasury spokeswoman. A traveler returning after June 30 will be subject to a $7,500 fine, Millerwise said. First-time violators with mitigating circumstances have sometimes gotten off with a warning letter, she added.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/8961307.htm

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Vinales, Cuba

Shame shame shame



Mr Kerry, Tear down the wall!

Kerry's stated policy on Cuba:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8848574.htm

Under Kerry Cuba will remain under US sanctions

Under Kerry we will still be travel banned unless our travel is deemed politically worthy by US gov jackboots

The hard line exiles are diminishing, now they're a stark minority.
But still the Dem party continues to pander to the extremist minority.


BAY OF PIGS GROUP KICKS OUT 9 MEMBERS
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/8961049.htm

The Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, comprised of Cuban exiles who participated in the ill-fated invasion of their homeland, announced Friday it has officially expelled nine former members for being ''traitors in the service'' of Fidel Castro.

The group, commonly referred to as Brigade 2506, said the men demonstrated a perceived softening against Castro's communist regime.

Seven of those expelled were veterans who accepted restored citizenship by the Cuban government during a conference last month on the island.

Two of the men ''officially'' expelled at the association's June 6 meeting were actually expelled in 1997 for running afoul of the group's hard-line beliefs. A third had already left the group of his own volition.

Mr Kerry, Tear down the wall!

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Kerry's stated policy on Cuba:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8848574.htm

Under Kerry Cuba will remain under US sanctions

Under Kerry we will still be travel banned unless our travel is deemed politically worthy by US gov jackboots

Can you imagine turning against someone who had been with you philosophically for 40 years, even "fought" in the Bay of Pigs with you, just because he has made the decision to renew his connection to his homeland by accepting citizenship? That's a big event! It's also damned decent of Cuba to make this arrangement for the same men who tried to overthrow Cuba in the 1960's.

Lunatic fringe, for sure. And THAT's the group we appear to be making our pitch to, completely OVERLOOKING the much larger sector of Cuban-Americans who seek to normalize relations with Cuba.

Unbelievable, Mika. Thanks for the article. Would never have known about this otherwise. No one outside the state is discussing the fact that individual Cuban "exiles" are mending bridges with Cuba. Sounds like a change is underway, regardless of _Bush's politics.

It's exactly as if the whole world is going the same direction AWAY from the radical right, at times. Hope the trend continues.

Those Brigade 2506 guys should never look back at the Miami extremists, and simply forget them, and start a new life. They don't NEED that stuff.