U.S.-Cuba Travel Could Happen 'Within the Year'

A bipartisan group of senators said open travel to Cuba will help both Americans and Cubans.

A bipartisan group of senators took a small but symbolic step toward normalizing relations with Cuba, introducing a bill Thursday that would allow U.S. citizens to travel freely to the island for the first time in more than half a century.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., the lead sponsor of the measure and a strong proponent for opening Cuba, described the move as one that would not only improve Cuban society but would remove an unfair and unnecessary prohibition on Americans’ freedom to travel.

“We’re simply saying that Americans should be allowed to have the right to travel wherever they would like to unless there’s compelling national security reason,” Flake said.

Three other Republicans and four Democrats have cosponsored the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, and Flake said he expects “many more” to sign on as the bill moves through regular order in the Senate.

Under current law, U.S. citizens of Cuban origin and a limited number of other Americans are able to travel to the island under a license. The new measure would do away with the restrictions altogether, allowing unrestricted travel unless the U.S. and Cuba go to war or imminent danger emerges.

Invoking similar language to what President Barack Obama used when he announced in December a change in U.S. policy toward normalization of relations with the communist country, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said 50 years of isolation had failed.

“We tried it for 50 years. We said if we closed the door on Cuba, Cuba would change,” Durbin said. “We did not succeed in that policy. It’s time for a new policy, a policy we know is proven to work.”

Durbin pointed to other countries with whom the U.S. formerly lacked normal relations, including the Soviet Union, which “disintegrated because the Warsaw Pact nations and many other Soviet republics took a look outside and said there’s a better world to the west.”

Flake said Americans could be able to go online and book a flight to Cuba “within a year,” once civil aviation agreements are in place, as a number of airlines have expressed interest in adding routes there.

But the senators, who have all traveled to the island in recent months, said the policy change is already having an impact.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., described meeting a shop owner in Havana who stopped him as he walked down the street. The man asked if Leahy and his wife were American and then pointed to an American flag in his store’s window.

“That’s never happened before,” Leahy said.

“Now, there’s no guarantees this will bring democracy this year or next, but I think it’s far more likely to set conditions where democracy will come sooner,” Flake said.

Opponents to normalizing relations, many of whom are Cuban, argue allowing Americans to come to Cuba – and bring their tourism dollars – will be counterproductive to efforts to make Cuban society more open.

“We should not aspire to help the Castro regime fill the coffers of its military monopolies with the dollars of American tourists while the Cuban people still struggle to make ends meet and are forced to labor under the oppressive conditions dictated by their government,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., a vocal opponent of normalization, in an emailed statement.

Menendez said the U.S. must press for concessions from the Cuban government, including a free press and the release of political prisoners, before the U.S. relaxes its stance. He also demanded compensation for property claims and the return of fugitives who have taken refuge in Cuba.

Meanwhile, Cuban President Raúl Castro had demands of his own, insisting the U.S. embargo be lifted, the base at Guantánamo Bay be restored to Cuban sovereignty and compensations be paid for “human and economic damage” before his government will agree to normalize relations with the U.S.

While Flake said the lifting of the embargo is his ultimate goal, he said removing the travel ban was separate.

“Some will say we ought to receive something in exchange for this; if we’re giving something, we ought to get some concessions from the Cuban government,” he said. “I think we all need to remember this is a sanction on Americans, not Cubans."