End the Travel Ban on Cuba

A list of co-sponsors of H.R. 874, "The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act." 

If your member of congress has not co-sponsored this legislation, see our action alert for information about how to contact him/her and urge him/her to support this bill. 

*For the Library of Congress co-sponsor list, please visit www.thomas.gov , and search by bill number.

Check out this Friday afternoon article with news from the White House on President Obama’s apparent intention to announce an end to all restrictions on Cuban-American family travel and remittances to Cuba . . . prior to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago in mid-April.  Momentum is building.  The world will notice.  The next move is congressional action on “travel for all.” here.

On April 2, Representatives Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), along with Representatives Farr (D-CA), McGovern (D-MA), Emerson (R-MO), DeLauro (D-CT), Chaffetz (new member, R-UT), Lee (D-CA), Berry (D-AR), and Edwards (D-MD), plus important leaders within the Cuban-American community, participated in a block-buster press conference announcing HR 874, the House companion to the Senate travel bill, S 428.  The Cuban Americans hit it out of the park, leaving no doubt about the support for "travel for all" from the Cuban-American community. We wish you could have been there. 

On Tuesday, March 31 at noon, Senators Dorgan (D-ND), Enzi (R-WY), and Dodd (D-CT), along with representatives of the American Farm Bureau, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Human Rights Watch, publicly announced S. 428, "The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act" in a press conference so well attended that reporters were standing in the halls. LAWG was there capturing the excitement of the moment and representing all of you.

The nation’s policymakers woke up to this on the front page of the Washington Post:

Momentum Grows for Relaxing Cuba Policy, by Shailagh Murray and Karen DeYoung

Here is a snippet of the article:

At a Capitol Hill news conference scheduled for tomorrow, a wide array of senators and interest groups -- including Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman  Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.); Banking Committee Chairman  Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.);  Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Human Rights Watch -- will rally around a potentially historic bill to lift the travel ban.

On March 11, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) posted a new regulation, plus a guidance letter outlining how the provisions in the FY 09 omnibus spending bill would be implemented, as related to Cuban-American family travel and ag sales.

New OFAC regulations on travel to Cuba

On March 11, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) posted a new regulation, plus a guidance letter outlining how the provisions in the FY 09 omnibus spending bill would be implemented, as related to Cuban-American family travel and ag sales. See the pdf containing the regulation and the guidance letter here.

This is big news for all of us that have been fighting for change in Cuba policy; we should celebrate, and our job is not completed.  

For Immediate Release
March 10, 2009
Groups Call for Cuba Policy Changes “Important Steps Forward,” Urges Obama to Honor Campaign Pledge
Washington, DC –

We have learned that Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) will speak on the Senate floor late this afternoon on Cuba policy, highlighting the absurdity of the policy by showing four photographs from LAWG/WOLA's photobook on family travel, Love, Loss, and Longing: The Impact of U.S. Travel Policies on Cuba-American Families.