Cuba - Travel to the Forbidden Island of Cuba

The Fifth Amendment (1791) provides that no citizen shall be deprived of his liberty without due process of law. In Kent v. Dulles, 357 US 111 (1958), the Court held that foreign travel is necessarily implied as part of this "liberty," stating (citations omitted):

"The right to travel is a part of the `liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. . . . Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country . . . may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values."
We can't be deprived of our Fifth Amendment liberty of travel "without due process of law." Due process in this situation is not afforded unless, as suggested in Magna Carta, the travel endangers national security. In Kent v. Dulles above, the Court indicated that restrictive legislation must be based on grave, immediate danger to the national security which is stated in explicit terms pursuant to the lawmaking function. The Court has never allowed a restriction of our travel where national security was not at such risk.

The Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917 (TWEA) allows our presidents after declaring a national emergency to prohibit or restrict not travel but "trade" with foreign nations, such trade being broadly defined as including any "money transactions." The TWEA has been used as authority for our presidents without consulting Congress to impose embargoes and other trade sanctions on various nations in emergencies. In 1982 the Reagan Administration promulgated regulations, under authority of TWEA, under which State Department licensed certain limited types of Cuba travel only, such as diplomats, full time journalists, academic research, educational conferences, family visits. The spending of money involved in unlicensed travel was criminalized by Treasury Department regulations and enforced by Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

In 1984 the Court in Regan v. Wald, 468 US 222 (a 5-4 opinion) upheld the constitutionality of these currency restrictions under TWEA as part of the Cuba trade embargo, deferring (as courts must) to State's opinion that the Cold War was an ongoing national emergency, Cuba had the military, political and economic support of the Soviet Union, and due process was afforded because national security was at substantial risk. The majority opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist (first quoting Zemel v. Rusk which had been decided shortly after the Cuba missile crisis) stated (citations omitted):

"'That the restriction which is challenged in this case is supported by the weightiest considerations of national security is perhaps best pointed up by recalling that the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 preceded the filing of appellant's complaint by less than two months.' We see no reason to differentiate between the travel restrictions imposed by the President in the present case and the passport restrictions imposed by the Secretary of State in Zemel. Both have the practical effect of preventing travel to Cuba by most American citizens, and both are justified by weighty concerns of foreign policy....In the opinion of the State Department, Cuba, with the political, economic, and military backing of the Soviet Union, has provided widespread support for armed violence and terrorism in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba also maintains close to 40,000 troops in various countries in Africa and the Middle East. Given the traditional deference to executive judgment..., we think there is an adequate basis under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to sustain the President's decision to curtail the flow of hard currency to Cuba - currency that could then be used in support of Cuban adventurism -- by restricting travel."

By 1991 all these factors supposedly endangering our security were no longer in existence. The Cold War had ended in 1989. The Soviet Union had disappeared in 1991, along with its support of Cuba. Cuba "adventurism" in the hemisphere had ended at least by the early eighties. Cuban troops were removed from Africa and the Middle East (if ever there) in the mid-eighties. Since then they have been sending physicians, health care and literacy workers instead of soldiers. In 1994 and thereafter our Defense Department, after full review of all intelligence and full on-site investigations of Cuban military equipment, manpower and facilities, has continually certified that Cuba poses no risk to our national security. The restrictions should have been repealed when the Cold War ended, but Presidents Bush I and Clinton lacked the political will to do it. They were left on the books during the 1990's without serious enforcement, primarily to frighten Americans out of visiting Cuba. Very occasionally penalty notices were sent out for civil fines (maximum $50,000,usual $7,500). OFAC accepted "voluntary settlements" from a few unlicensed, frightened, unwary Cuba travelers, the rest of the notices (now over 1,000) were held "in abeyance." The OFAC never took anyone to court because it feared a decision declaring the restrictions unconstitutional.

In 1996 and again in 2000 Congress codified the restrictions, necessitating that any future repeal be done by Congress rather than a president. Although President Bush II took an oath to protect and preserve the US Constitution, his administration, 15 years after the end of the Cold War, is now claiming to enforce the restrictions despite Congress's votes each year to refuse budget requests for enforcement money (such being later annulled by "party leaders" in conference committees). Several cases apparently are now being prosecuted, but none have yet reached the first level, hearing before an in-house Treasury administrative judge. After such hearing it would take several years for a case to wend its way through the federal court system (where the constitutional issues could be raised) up to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, in Congress every year in the past four years at least, bills have been introduced (or pending) to repeal the restrictions. Based on the recent votes against enforcement money, a majority of at least 55% to 59% in both chambers would favor repeal. For some reason these majorities can't bring the repeal issue to the floor for debate and vote. It's said that the party leaders won't allow it, and it's true that the party leaders act as agents of the president, who has threatened a veto. But party doesn't seem important on this issue because many from both parties are on each side. When a majority in each chamber can't bring an issue to a vote, it leads one to wonder whether our Congress is functioning.
Laws and regulations which become unconstitutional by changing realities should not be allowed to remain on the books for purposes other than enforcement. If a law is questionably unconstitutional, it should be repealed or immediately brought to court to determine its validity. To do otherwise breeds public contempt for the law and encourages civil disobedience. The Reagan Cuba travel restrictions favor some groups of Americans, and some types of travel, over others. Apparently our national politicians think they can gain funding or votes in this way. But the First and Fifth Amendments do not permit this. They grant the right of free association and travel to all US citizens equally. Nor does parsing our fundamental freedoms make sense. Some families are close, some aren't. Some people travel for research, some for relaxation, some to learn, some for curiosity. As a people we travel for hundreds of different reasons and the point of our basic liberties is to keep unnecessary governmental interference out of our private lives. That's what freedom is. Before the Cuban Revolution the Cuban and American peoples had a long, friendly, mutually beneficial relationship. People passed freely between the countries, learned from each other, and became aware through personal experience of the realities of the other. Since the revolution we two peoples have been isolated from each other due to some ideological disputes between our governments which are not reality-based and are their creation, not ours. The unnecessary prohibition of our right to travel to and learn the reality of Cuba is sad for us, because we are shut off from truth, friendship and many other benefits. Moreover, if our government can prevent us from visiting Cuba, why not also Mexico, the Caribbean, Canada, anywhere in the world it wants to apply pressure to a foreign government?

The separation of Cuban family members is very sad for many of them. The effect of our government's blockade on the Cuban people is a devastating and unmitigated tragedy. Many of us believe that this economic war could not continue if Americans were allowed to visit Cuba freely. As Justice Douglas observed in Kent v. Dulles above, free citizens of a democracy are not obliged to accept government and media propaganda as their only information source. By direct contact with Cuban people our views on our government's policies would be enriched -- we could see that Cubans are our friends rather than enemies, that they live and think much as we do, and they have organized their society democratically in the way they desire, which is their prerogative, not ours. Last year in Miami Mikhail Gorbachev said that the Berlin Wall came down in response to Ronald Reagan's famous 1988 demand, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" It's now high time to tear down Mr. Reagan's wall.

(Tom Crumpacker is a lawyer who works with the Miami Coalition to End the US Embargo of Cuba. He can be reached at: Crump8@aol.com)

South Florida Sun-Sentinel-Washington
In the first legal decision issued as part of the Bush administration's crackdown on travelers to Cuba, Administrative Law Judge Robert Barton reduced the proposed penalty on a Minnesota man by almost 90 percent, from $6,770 to $780. Craig Ostrem of Edina Minn., went to Cuba on a scuba diving trip in January and February of 1999. He booked his trip through Canada and returned with two bottles of rum, candy and artwork valued at $30. In his decision, Barton said the government's requested penalty of $7,350 was not warranted because there were a number of mitigating factors in the case. For example, Ostrem cooperated with authorities and was a first-time offender, Barton said. Barton said "the lack of any aggravating factors and the presence of several mitigating factors has led me to impose a lesser penalty here."

But Barton, an administrative law judge with the Department of Justice, emphasized in his decision that higher penalties, as high as the $65,000 maximum allowed by law, could be justified in some cases. Ostrem and his attorney, Matthew Armbrecht, could not be reached for comment. Molly Millerwise, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces travel and other restrictions on trade with Cuba, said the department does not comment on specific cases. The Bush administration's crackdown on travelers has resulted in dozens of cases like Ostrem's making their way through the system for the first time. In years past, people accused of traveling illegally to Cuba often sat in limbo because there were no judges to hear their cases. Along with the crackdown on illegal travelers, new restrictions imposed last year have had the effect of reducing the number of people flying to the island legally on charter flights. During the last half of 2004, the number of seats reserved on charter flights to Cuba dropped by half from the same period the year before.

New Trade Regulations will Hurt US Farmers and Businesses
By Timothy Ashby
New regulations could close an important market for US agricultural products exporters in 2005 - the first year in half a century that America will have an agricultural trade deficit. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforces trade sanctions, is preparing to require Cuba to prepay for goods prior to being loaded for export. This requirement is likely to choke off US exports to Cuba which were over $400 million in 2004 and could reach $1 billion by 2006. A US embargo on bilateral trade with Cuba has been in place since 1960. However in 2000 the US Congress passed the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (TSREEA) which changed the US-Cuba trade relationship by allowing exceptions from US sanctions for agricultural, food product and medical exports. Since legal exports to Cuba began, Cuba has become our 21st largest agricultural market with over $800 million in cash purchases and we are Cuba's number one source for imported food. US agricultural products sales to Cuba are growing at an annual rate of 115%. A study by Texas A&M University found that $400 million annually in agricultural exports to Cuba results in $919 million in additional economic output in the United States, boosting Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by $517 million. The study also estimates that 10,656 US jobs are created. In the best-case scenario - outright elimination of the trade embargo - the projected $1.24 billion in farm exports to Cuba would stimulate an additional $3.6 billion in total economic output and another $818 million in household income.

The law prohibits financing by US suppliers or banks, requiring cash in advance arrangements for authorized US exports to Cuba. On the few occasions when a Cuban payment has not been finalized in time, shippers have been able to ensure that legal title and possession of the goods were withheld until payment was received and thus effectively prevent sales on credit. OFAC now argues that a payment delay of even a few hours is an illegal extension of credit to Cuba. While the new guidelines are ostensibly meant to remedy this, in reality they are a thinly veiled attempt by the Bush administration to intensify economic pressure on Fidel Castro - at the expense of American farmers and businesses. The proposed export rules changes are irrational because food sales to Cuba do not prop up the Castro regime and they help alleviate the negative impact of US sanctions on the Cuban people. Less than 5 percent of US products end up in state-owned stores. The rest is distributed to the population through the rationing system.

The proposed regulations are also probably illegal. A recent report by Congressional Research Service (CRS) lawyers stated that it was "difficult to find legal support for an interpretation of 'payment of cash in advance' that requires payment to be received prior to shipment. A letter sent to Treasury Secretary John Snow on November 23, 2004, by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT), Larry Craig (R-ID), and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) echoed the CRS report. The Senators expressed their "outrage and profound disappointment" about OFAC's actions, calling them "an unacceptable interference by the US government into lawful commerce conducted by compliant US businesses," which "must necessarily be interpreted as a conscious and intentional decision by OFAC to flout the will of Congress." Despite rancorous relations, Cuba prefers to import from the United States because of proximity to Havana and the high quality of US agricultural products. Cuban officials have reluctantly declared that they will turn to other suppliers if forced to pay while goods remain in US ports. OFAC's new guidelines would harm the competitive position of US products compared to those readily available from other suppliers at a time when the US trade deficit is over $600 billion and the Agricultural Department has announced that America will have an agricultural trade deficit in 2005. This development would be highly detrimental to US producers since Cuba has become our 21st-largest agricultural market and, ironically, one of the least risky for American exporters due to the cash-in-advance provision.

If the goal of the US government is to end the Castro regime, an open US trade policy is more likely to subvert it than the embargo. Despite its supposed support for free trade, the Bush administration vastly underestimates the extent to which increased foreign trade and interaction with US businesses can undermine Cuban communism.

(As a senior political appointee during the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, Dr. Timothy Ashby served at the US Commerce Department, International Trade Administration, as Director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean, and acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Commerce for the Western Hemisphere, with responsibility for commercial relations with Cuba. He holds a Ph.D in International Relations from the University of Southern California, an MBA from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland; and will receive his Juris Doctor degree from Seattle University School of Law, Seattle, Washington, in May 2005. )