President Obama to Lift Restrictions on Cuba

Abcnews.com ^ | 01/13/09 | Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller

[Sleeping Freeper]

At today’s daily White House briefing, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs will announce that the administration will lift travel, remittance, mail and business restrictions relating to the Communist nation of Cuba.

The changes will allow unlimited visits to family members on the island as well as unlimited remittances -- the cash recent immigrants to the U.S. send to relatives back home. President Bush imposed stricter restrictions on both in 2004.

"As hard as we search, we can't find anyone who thinks the limitations Bush put on family travel and family remittances in 2004 were a good idea," a senior administration official tells ABC News.

The Obama administration will also take steps to enhance the flow of information by allowing U.S. telecommunications networks to link the U.S. and Cuba; and will allow an expansion of humanitarian items that can be sent to the island (including clothing, personal hygiene items and fishing equipment). It will remain illegal to send items to senior government officials and members of the Communist Party. "These steps are being taken in support of the Cuban people's desire to freely determine their own future and to open up the space needed to see democratic progress in Cuba," says a White House official.

[guns_for_liberty]

I’m all in favor of letting Americans travel wherever in the world we want to go. I don’t like the government telling me how to live my life.

[Yomin Postelnik]

Doing so now only props up the murderous Castro regime while it was (and hopefully still is - though no thanks to Obama’s move) in its last throws. Democrats really are sick.

[Mila]

“I guess they didn’t talk to any Cubans from South Florida who fled their country.”

Maybe they did. A large part of the Cuban community was none too happy with the change in travel requirements implemented by President Bush in 2004. It created more hardships for their families in Cuba and among other things, cut visits back from once a year to once every three years.

http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices-legislative/5665030-1.html

http://havanajournal.com/cuban_americans/entry/cuban-americans-from-vermont-sue-us-restrictions-on-family-travel-to-cuba/

Some Cubans Embrace Easier Rules For Family Visits

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-loc-cuba-travel-032709,0,6014437.story

[M. Espinola]

It goes from appeasing anti-Western Islamic dictatorships to brutal communist régimes. Instead of developing methods to oust Castro and his commies, he is securing these anti-American lice in power.

[b4its2late]

All well and good then.