Three State ACLU Affiliates, Center for Constitutional Rights Join First Challenge to Increased Restrictions on Family Visits Announced in 2004
Versión en español: http://www.aclufl.org/spanish/noticias/vilaseca.cfm
MIAMI and MONTPELIER, Vt. – American Civil Liberties Union Affiliates in Florida, Vermont and Massachusetts, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), today filed a joint friend-of-the-court brief in Vilaseca v. U.S. Department of Treasury, a federal lawsuit in Vermont challenging severe restrictions imposed by the Bush Administration on travel to visit close family members in Cuba.

The lawsuit is the first challenge to the U.S. government’s family visit restrictions, which were announced in 2004 but are being challenged now by four individuals who have current urgent needs to visit with elderly or ill relatives. The regulations prohibit Americans from visiting close family members in Cuba more than once every three years, instead of every year as had been the case for many years, even in emergency humanitarian situations. For the first time, the regulations also prevent Americans from visiting aunts, uncles or cousins at all. Anyone who violates the new rules could face fines of up to $1 million and up to ten years in jail.

“The ability of Cuban-Americans to visit relatives in Cuba, especially at crucial moments in the history of the family such as the celebration of marriages, or visiting a sick relative in a hospital, or attending a relative’s funeral, is essential to maintain family integrity,” said Howard Simon, ACLU of Florida Executive Director. “The Government of the United States should not be in the business of breaking up families by restricting their ability to visit each other. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, clearly states that ‘Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.’

“Cuban-Americans with family members in Cuba should be able to visit their relatives – particularly under demanding situations such as death and illness,” Simon added. “If the Government’s goal is to end the communist regime in Cuba and progress toward a more democratic society, the answer is to encourage open dialogue, not shut it down. Further isolating Cuba prevents more contact with dissident groups that will foster the growth of democratic institutions. The Government is standing in the way of progress for Cubans here in the U.S. and in Cuba.”

The ACLU argues that the due process right to preserve family relationships is deeply rooted in the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Further, the ACLU points to international human rights law that confirms that the preservation of family relationships is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of four individuals, Armando Vilaseca, Yurisleidis Leyva Mora, Jared Kingsbury Carter, and Maricel Lucero Keniston, all of whom reside in Vermont. The parties are asking the court to enter an injunction requiring the Government to cease enforcement of the “Family Visit Regulations” and allow Vilaseca and other Cuban-Americans to resume annual and humanitarian travel to Cuba for family reasons.

The amicus brief was filed today in the United States District Court of Vermont. Although it was filed in Vermont, the result of the lawsuit will have the greatest impact in Florida, where most Cuban-Americans reside.

The ACLU acknowledges and is grateful to the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP for their hard work with the three ACLU affiliates and CCR.

The amicus brief was prepared by James L. Messenger, Malick W. Ghachem, Okey Onyejekwe, Wasif Qureshi and Arthur D’Andrea, all of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, which represented the groups pro bono. Other lawyers on the brief include Mitchell L. Pearl, of Langrock Sperry & Wool, LLP in Burlington, VT; Randall Marshall, ACLU of Florida Legal Director; John Reinstein and Sarah Wunsch, ACLU of Massachusetts; and Darius Charney, Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City.

Taddeo tells Ros-Lehtinen to “stop tearing families apart”
…We must stop tearing Cuban and Cuban-American families apart. Who can think it is right to keep a daughter from seeing her dying father? Who believes that it is a good policy that prevents a young man from sending money home to his grandmother? These restrictions are inhumane and they go against the family values of all Americans.

The time has come to lift the 2004 travel and remittance restrictions. I hereby call on Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen – who was so instrumental in the Bush Administration’s decision to impose the ban – to abandon her previous position and to support Cuban and Cuban-American families.

May 29, 2008
By Bruce Edwards Rutland Herald

BURLINGTON — Four Vermonters and the U.S. government squared off in U.S. District Court in Burlington on Wednesday over whether travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans who want to visit family members on the Caribbean island violates their constitutional rights.

Following the two-hour hearing, U.S. District Judge William Sessions took the case under advisement, declining to rule from the bench on the government’s motion to dismiss the case. At the same time, Sessions ruled against the four plaintiffs who sought a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the three Vermonters of Cuban descent and an American married to a Cuban to travel to Cuba.

Sessions ruled that he did not have the legal authority at this time to issue such an order.

The hearing was punctuated by Sessions repeatedly asking probing questions of the government and plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Click here to read the entire article which appeared in The Barre Montpelier Times Argus

Against all logic and compassion, John McCain believes that the United States can punish Cuba’s leaders by punishing the Cuban people and their relatives in this country.

Click to read the full editorial which appeared in the Palm Beach Post on Wednesday, May 28.

BY MICHAEL PUTNEY

mputney@local10.com

Get ready for a fresh blast of gale force rhetoric about Cuba, some it refreshing but most as stale as last week’s ropa vieja.

The winds starting blowing yesterday with remarks by John McCain to mark Cuba Independence Day and will continue later this week with a speech to the Cuban American National Foundation by Barack Obama.

There’s more. Click here to read it.

From The Miami Herald of Wednesday, May 21

BY ANA MENENDEZ
An open letter to the presidential hopefuls in town this week:Welcome to South Florida and thanks for coming. We hate to start on a downbeat note, but time is short and we have a lot of problems you should know about.

Traffic, as you saw coming from the airport, is a mess. And now the good people who actually take mass transit face huge fare increases.

The state’s budget is in so much trouble that services are being slashed across Florida. We suffer a recurrent disaster called hurricanes. And another called boom-and-bust. We now have the highest number of empty condos anywhere, says a new report by the National Association of Realtors.

All these empty condos, gas at $4 a gallon and our politicians want to trap us deeper in suburbia. They just voted to keep pushing development closer to the Everglades.

EMPHASIS ON CUBA

Like I said, we have a lot of problems. But chances are you’re not here to talk about them. Chances are you’re here to talk about what everyone who wants to get elected comes to Miami to talk about: Cuba. Many have done it before and John McCain tried again Tuesday. Please don’t. Please don’t tell us how strong and brave the exiles are. Please don’t tell us, “Next year in Havana!”

We know Castro is an evil, nasty tyrant. We don’t need you dropping in to tell us. Whatever you do, for the love of God, please do not pick up any maracas. Don’t beat the bongos. Don’t put on a guayabera. Don’t try to dance ‘’salsa” (we prefer son, anyway).

It’s nice that you have Cuban friends. But we don’t want to know about José, who roomed with you in college. Don’t tell us about Pepito, who arrived in Miami with just two quarters in his pocket and a dream of freedom.

McCain, you want to hunt down and try Cuba’s leaders? Illness and old age already beat us to justice. History will beat us to judgment. Don’t tell us any more of what you think we want to hear. We’re weary of promises.

We know about the dissidents, the rafters, the hopelessness, the repression. Even those of us who aren’t Cuban know it better than you. We are married to Cubans, have Cuban in-laws, Cuban employees, Cuban bosses. Don’t tell us. But you can’t help yourselves. Something about South Florida — maybe it’s the weather, the accents, the sheer proximity — prompts even the best among us to lapse into Cuba talk.

END RESTRICTIONS

So if you must talk about Cuba, tell us something new. We all want elections and democracy. But even the most hard-line among us secretly acknowledge that our policies of confrontation have won nothing.

Start small. Start with the Bush travel restrictions. Stand up at that dinner or lunch that you won’t touch and say: ”When I’m elected, the first thing I’ll do is allow Cuban Americans to travel to the island. No restrictions, no conditions.” Your voice rising, say: “I will restore what no politician has the moral authority to take away: your right to set foot in your homeland; your right to give solace to your family; your right to hold your children, comfort your sick and bury your dead.”

You’ll be OK. Poll after poll says most Cuban Americans favor lifting the restrictions. And a group of exiles just filed suit in Vermont contesting the 2004 order.

This is your chance. If you must talk about Cuba, please spare us the condescending rhetoric. Then forget Havana and try addressing our more immediate problems here. Yes, even Cuban Americans worry about this country.

Surprise us. We may just end up surprising you.

Watch a brief moment of Obama’s speech in Miami - 2007

By Albor Ruiz

New York Daily News — April 27, 2008

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/04/27/2008-04-27_us_cubans_vow_to_fight_florida_politicia.html

“All politics is local,” said Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Massachusettscongressman who was speaker of the House from 1977 until his retirement in1987. And in Florida, where ultraconservative Cuban-Americans have managed to hijack U.S. policy toward the Communist island for more than 40 years,O’Neill’s dictum has been proven correct to the point of absurdity.

Yet there is a New York-born Republican politician in that Southern state who is not satisfied. His name is David Rivera, and he is a member of the Florida State House. He recently introduced a bill before the state Legislature that could have enormous consequences, particularly for Cubans anxious to visit their families on the island. If it passes, agencies providing travel to Cuba would be required to pay a $2,500 registration fee to the state. They would also have to post a bond ranging from $100,000 to $250,000, regardless of the size of the agency. Possible fines and legal expenses could be deducted from the bond. All this on top of the already stringent federal regulations.

“I assure you,” said Francisco Aruca, a Miami radio commentator and former travel executive, “that merely because of this requirement, more than 70% of the existing travel agencies, all of them operated under licenses granted bythe U.S. Treasury Department, will quit the industry, because they do not have the resources to make a deposit that big.” Cubans who wish to visit their relatives on the island, Aruca said, would be forced to travel through a third country, which, of course, is more difficult and expensive.

Rivera’s bill was drafted in secret, and despite its potential consequences,the media took a long time to bring it to the attention of the public. Actually, Rivera introduced the bill in the Florida House on Jan. 23, but three months went by until the first article informing the public about it appeared in Spanish in April 5. The next day, another article, this time in English, was published.

In the past three months, the bill passed through all the Florida House committees without opposition. On Monday, Rivera’s proposal passed through a Senate committee despite the efforts of a delegation of travel industry experts and their legal advisers, who last week testified for the first time in the state Legislature.

Florida is a state with no shortage of colorful characters, but Rivera has emerged as one of the wackiest. He is the same guy who in 2006 authored a bill banning all state university study trips to Cuba. A federal lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of such a law, and it was reversed. Now, if this new bill punishing the Cuban-American community in Florida is approved, travel agencies and groups of Cuban-Americans who want to preserve the right to visit their families and their home country will go to the courts once again.

Aruca believes Rivera introduced this bill now “to create a favorable campaign environment for the reelection of the three federal congresspeople, courtesy of the Cuban Republican lawmakers in the state Legislature. “In fact, for the first time, the three federal Republican Congress members from Miami will face serious opposition in November from challengers who have a chance to defeat them and who favor lifting restrictions for Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba.

Whatever happens to Rivera’s bill in the Florida Legislature, the fight to normalize family travel to Cuba is far from over. “If the bill passes, we’ll go to the courts to fight it - of that you can be sure,” Aruca said.

aruiz@nydailynews.com