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01/11/13 - KOIN Local 6 - Cubans eager to try new law easing travel rules

HAVANA (AP) - Ana Liliam Garcia has never left Cuba but she hopes that
will soon change, excitedly talking of her desire to meet her many
relatives in Florida, and perhaps even Mickey Mouse.

The raven-haired 16-year-old is eagerly awaiting a new law taking effect
Monday that will let the vast majority of Cubans travel abroad for the
first time in 50 years.

The overhaul of Cuba's decades-old migratory law, announced three months
ago, is perhaps the most highly anticipated of a series of reforms
initiated under President Raul Castro. It eliminates the hated "white
card" exit visa that Cuba long forced its citizens to apply for before
they could leave the island, something that led opponents to refer to the
communist-run country as an "island prison."

"My cousins and my uncles, they're all in Miami," Garcia said in Havana.
"I would like to see Disneyland in the United States. I'll be able to
travel!"

While the law has ignited dreams of travel, observers predict it will
result in only a modest initial increase in trips by Cubans, who must
still get visas from the destination countries, including the United
States. And critics note that the law includes a "national security"
clause that could be used to bar exits by government opponents, skilled
workers and those privy to sensitive information.

But if applied evenhandedly, the opening would eliminate one of the
biggest human rights criticisms leveled against Cuba: that the state
decides who can and who cannot leave the country.

"What's important about it is people see this as a symbolic step of some
importance more than a substantive one," said Geoff Thale, a Cuba analyst
at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank. "It symbolizes the
end of the state intruding in the same way it used to in people's regular
lives."

The new law has a number of concrete provisions that will benefit many
Cubans.

For Garcia, it means a first chance to travel since under the previous
rules most minors could only leave Cuba if they planned to do so
permanently.

As a dual Spanish citizen, something she and tens of thousands of other
Cubans have attained through Spanish ancestry, the teen qualifies to visit
Florida without having to worry about a U.S. visa.

Relatives there will help out with airfare and other costs her parents
can't afford.

"My aunts and uncles are overjoyed," Garcia said. "In my dreams, I want to
see the whole world ... but I always would want to return to where my
family and friends are."

The measure greatly simplifies the bureaucracy of travel by scrapping the
"white card" and doing away with the requirement that Cubans provide a
letter of invitation from someone in their country of destination.

In the past nearly all exit visa applications were granted, and relatively
quickly, but the costs were prohibitive to many in this country where
wages average $20 a month. Between notarization and application fees, fees
ran to $300 or more a trip, and some Cubans paid an additional $200 to
$300 to people overseas for invitation letters.

Now, islanders need only make a one-time $100 application for a passport,
renewable for $20 every two years.

The new rules also raise from 11 to 24 months the amount of time Cubans
can be gone without losing residency rights. That will make it easier for
people to work or study abroad longer while maintaining ties to the
island, potentially sending money to relatives or even returning with
hard-currency earnings to invest in newly legalized small businesses or
cooperatives.

"It will create more of a revolving door instead of an escape hatch," said
Ted Henken, a professor of Latin American studies at Baruch College in New
York. "They're removing another thorn in the crown of thorns that a lot of
Cubans have to wear."

The migratory law is a PR coup for the Cuban government, which bristles at
outside criticism of its human rights record. It also gives Havana
ammunition in its crusade against the 50-year U.S. embargo, which bars
most Americans from traveling to the island.

"Cuba permits its citizens to come travel here. We don't permit our
citizens to travel there without a regulatory framework that is probably
stricter than what the Cubans are going to adopt," Thale said. "So it does
look hypocritical."

The law also has implications for U.S. policy, which allows Cubans who
reach American soil to stay and grants them residency rights after just a
year. The Cuban law's 24-month window means there will be a one-year
overlap during which immigrants can establish U.S. residency without
losing their right of return, potentially spawning a new class of
bi-nationals able to move back and forth seamlessly between the two
countries.

The stated aim of the United States' Cuban Adjustment Act is to provide
refuge for those fleeing oppression, not easy citizenship for those who
wish to straddle both worlds, and some Cuban-American lawmakers have
already talked of revisiting the policy.

As with many things in Cuba, the effect of the reform will come down to
how it is implemented.

A key article gives authorities the right to deny passports in some cases,
including people facing criminal investigation, those with outstanding
debts or for "reasons of Defense and National Security."

The latter provision has widely been interpreted to mean that people in
strategic professions, such as military officers, athletes or government
figures with access to sensitive information, could be turned down just as
they were in the past.

One litmus test will be how Cuba handles dissidents, who are officially
considered traitors and are routinely denied travel permission.

Anti-government blogger Yoani Sanchez, who has been barred from leaving at
least 19 times, has said state security agents told her in the past she
could only leave if it was for good.

"My suitcase is still packed for a trip WITH RETURN!" she tweeted
recently. "Will I be allowed to go?"

Berta Soler, a leader of the opposition group the Ladies in White, also
said she plans to test the law. If successful, she hopes to finally travel
to Strasbourg, France, to receive the European Union's 2005 Sakharov human
rights prize.

But dissidents are skeptical their situation will change.

"I think the migratory law is a way of creating the illusion of an opening
in the eyes of the international community so Cuba is not criticized so
much," said Guillermo Farinas, another Sakharov winner who was turned down
for an exit visa in 2006, 2007 and 2010.

There are at least some indications that authorities may be more open to
travel in sensitive cases.

This week word emerged of a Health Ministry directive saying doctors are
to be treated like all other citizens in their travel requests. The news
came as a surprise because health care workers are among those closely
guarded to prevent "brain drain" of skilled workers trained at great cost
under Cuba's socialist system. It was widely presumed that doctors would
fall under the "national security" clause.

That should make life easier for people like Pedro Salazar, a 45-year-old
industrial designer. He and his wife, Noelis Rodriguez, have been granted
U.S. family-reunification immigrant visas, but have been waiting for
Rodriguez, an epidemiologist, to be cleared to leave.

"I'm a professional. What does it matter if I live here or elsewhere?"
Salazar said on a recent day outside a migration office. "They educate
professionals for free, yes, it's true. But then I spent two years doing
social service."

Analysts say islanders will likely not be flocking en masse to the Grand
Canyon or the French Riviera anytime soon.

Securing entry visas to Europe or the United States can be difficult for
citizens of any developing nation. And low salaries mean millions of
Cubans will be priced out.

But experts say more and more islanders will be able to see the outside
world, something likely to fuel a demand for more change.

"The new migratory policy is an incentive for (further) reform in politics
and the economy," said Arturo Lopez-Levy, a Cuban-born economist at the
University of Denver. "The right to travel is a multiplier of rights."

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