Loved ones oppose travel limits to Cuba
Two U.S. citizens who have relatives in Cuba denounced Bush
administration regulations that limit their ability to visit family on
the island.
Posted on Fri, May. 23, 2008
By ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
Baltasar Martín Garrote's mother is 85, has leukemia, and broke her
pelvis and hip in a fall at home in Matánzas, Cuba, three months ago.
Her son in Miami desperately wants to take care of her but can't because
of Bush administration Cuba travel restrictions.
''I will not be able to see my mother until 2010 under the current
restrictions we are challenging,'' said Martín Garrote. ``I pray to God
that she will remain alive until 2010 but given her advanced age, her
ailment, it may not be possible.''
Martín Garrote, 53, was one of two U.S. citizens who appeared at a news
conference Thursday at Democracy Movement headquarters to complain about
the 2004 travel restrictions that prohibit U.S. citizens and residents
from visiting relatives in Cuba more than once every three years --
regardless of emergencies. Prior to 2004, Cuban Americans could travel
once a year.
Beth Boone, artistic and executive director of the culture and arts
group Miami Light Project, also is unable to see her husband who lives
in Cuba. She traveled to Cuba with their 3-year-old son in November to
see her husband but will not be able to visit again for three years.
The American Civil Liberties Union Florida affiliate called the news
conference to publicize a lawsuit in Vermont federal court in which
plaintiffs are seeking to persuade a judge to lift travel restrictions.
ACLU chapters in Florida, Vermont and Massachusetts joined the lawsuit
last week and a hearing has been scheduled in Burlington, Vt., on
Wednesday, said Howard Simon, the Florida ACLU executive director.
Ramón Saúl Sánchez, the Democracy Movement leader, said he backs the
lawsuit because travel restrictions divide exile families and violate
their civil rights.
''We should be in the business of protecting rights and not diminishing
them,'' Sánchez said. ``To deprive the Cuban people in exile of the
right to travel to their homeland in the name of freedom constitutes an
act contrary to the values of freedom.''
Sánchez said restrictions were partly responsible for a recent increase
in Cuban migrant smuggling.
''The imposed family separation by the Cuban regime, coupled with the
travel ban against Cuban exiles of three years between trips, contribute
to the increase of human smuggling as relatives on both sides of the
Straits of Florida miss each other,'' he said.
The White House and the State Department had no immediate comment.
But in the past one of the principal supporters of the travel
restrictions, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart has said lifting the restrictions
could open the floodgates to U.S. tourist travel to the island.
''The U.S. tourism ban, which is the most important aspect of the
[trade] embargo, would simply become unsustainable if Cuban-American
members of Congress advocated unrestricted travel for Cuban exiles,''
the Republican told The Miami Herald recently. ``How could I ask my
colleagues from other states to continue prohibiting travel to Cuba by
their constituents if I were advocating unrestricted travel to Cuba for
Cuban Americans?''
A structural engineer, Martín Garrote left Cuba for Mexico in 1994, then
resettled in the United States in 2000 and joined the Democracy Movement.
Martín Garrote said he fled Cuba because he disagreed with Cuba's
communist government.
''I want to see democracy in Cuba,'' he said.
He said that from 2002 to 2006 he was unable to visit his mother because
the Cuban government rejected his travel requests. His mother obtained a
visa to visit him in Miami thanks to help from Diaz-Balart, he said.
Soon after arriving she became ill and was hospitalized.
She recovered and flew back to Cuba. Last year, Martín Garrote finally
traveled to Cuba and saw his mother, Elsa Garrote, for 12 days. He also
visited an aunt, Maria Dolores Garrote, 87 and blind.
Boone, 46, met her husband, a hip-hop musician she declined to identify,
while visiting Cuba in 2002 as part of a cultural-exchange program.
Boone choked back tears when she talked about her November visit.
''It was a wonderful visit and it was as much filled with joy as it was
with pain because we can't go back for three more years,'' she said.
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