Floor Statement of Sen. Patrick Leahy: In Support Of Dodd-Leahy Amendment Lift Travel Restrictions To Cuba

June 30, 1999

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the distinguished senior Senator from Connecticut has stated the arguments so very well. Like he, I have traveled to Cuba. I visited Cuba 3 months ago with the distinguished senior Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed.

We were able to go there because we are U.S. Government officials. If we had been private citizens, as the distinguished Senator from Connecticut has said, we would have had some problems.

My friend from Connecticut mentioned the problems that my wife Marcelle faced when she went to Cuba. He and I have discussed that because of the absurdity of it.

My wife Marcelle has accompanied me on many foreign trips. We have gone abroad representing our country, at the request of the Senate, at the request of the President; and sometimes we have traveled on our own just to visit friends abroad.

So we did not think there was much of a difference that time. Our passports were in order. We were going to a Caribbean country, having traveled in that area often, so we didn't need any special shots or anything.

We were about to go. But a few days before we were to leave --this is what the Senator from Connecticut referenced--we received a call from the State Department saying they were not sure they could approve my wife's travel to Cuba.

I cannot speak for other Senators, but I suspect that most Senators would react the same way I did if they were told that a State Department bureaucrat had the authority to prevent their spouse or their children from traveling with them to a country with which we are not at war and which, according to the Defense Department, and practically every other American, poses no threat to our national security.

At first I thought it was a joke. They said no. My wife is not a Government official. She is not a journalist. They did not think she could go. She is, and has been, a practicing, registered nurse throughout her professional life. In the end, she was able to join me because an American nurses association asked her to report on an aspect of current health in Cuba, and she agreed to report back to them.

Actually she has visited, with me, other parts of the world where we have used the Leahy War Victims Fund or where we have gone to visit landmine victims or looked at health care. I have always relied on her knowledge and expertise and did on this trip.

But I thought, how many Senators realize that if they wanted to take their spouse or their children with them to Cuba, they could be prevented from doing so by U.S. authorities. They can take them anywhere else in the world, any other country that would allow them in, but here it is not that the other country would not allow them in. Our country is saying: We're not going to allow you to leave if that is where you're going.

The authors who put that law together knew the blanket prohibition on travel by American citizens would be unconstitutional, so they came up with a nifty way to avoid that problem while still having the same result. They said: Well, Americans could travel to Cuba; they just cannot spend any money there.

Think of it. You can go to Cuba but you can't stay anywhere if it is going to cost you money to stay; you can't eat anything if it is going to cost you money for the food; you can't take a cab, or anything, from the airport if it is going to cost you money.

Well, come on. Almost a decade has passed since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. But even before that Americans went there. Now they freely travel to Russia by the thousands every year, as they did before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Eight years have passed since the Russians cut their $3 billion subsidy a year to Cuba, and we now give hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Russia, even though that was our great enemy during the cold war.

Americans, as the Senator from Connecticut has said, can travel to North Korea. There are no restrictions on the right of Americans to travel there or to spend money there.

I ask a question of my colleagues: Which country poses a greater threat to the United States or world stability? North Korea or Cuba? I think the answer, especially if you watch the news at all, is North Korea, for it is in South Korea where we have tens of thousands of U.S. troops poised to defend it.

Americans can travel to Iran, a country that is in total, gross violation of all international law. They took over our embassy, held our diplomats hostage, broke every single possible international law there was--they still hold our property that they confiscated from us--but we can travel freely there; we can spend money there.

The same goes for Sudan. These are countries that are on our own terrorist list, but we can travel there.

Americans travel to China and Vietnam, countries that have had abysmal human rights records. We not only travel there, we actively promote American investment there.

So our Cuban policy is hypocritical, inconsistent, self-defeating, and contrary to our values--to give it the benefit of the doubt. We are a nation that prides itself on our tradition of encouraging the free flow of people and ideas. It is simply impossible to make a rational argument that Americans should be able to travel freely to North Korea or Iran but not to Cuba. You cannot make that argument.

I cannot believe that Members of Congress want the State Department or the Treasury Department deciding where their family members or constituents can travel, unless we are at war or there is a national emergency to justify it. But that is what is happening.

So because it is happening, it should not be surprising to anybody in this Chamber that the law is being violated by tens of thousands of Americans who are traveling to Cuba every year, and almost none of them are prosecuted. I kept running into people on the streets of Havana from the United States. I said: Do you have licenses or anything? No. We just came down.

I know people from my own State who drive an hour's drive away to Montreal and then fly to Cuba; people who go to the Hemingway Marina in their boats and then spend time in Cuba.

Mr. DODD. Will my colleague yield on that point?

Mr. LEAHY. Certainly.

Mr. DODD. I think it is an important point you are making. But I think in almost every single case, what these citizens are doing is flying through Canada or Cancun and in a sense violating the law; they are acting illegally.

Mr. LEAHY. That is right.

Mr. DODD. So in a sense we are promoting, by this particular provision in our existing law, illegal travel.

Mr. LEAHY. And also promoting a complete disrespect for our laws because everybody knows they are not going to be prosecuted. It is a ridiculous thing. Why have this significant law on the books and then not prosecute it? Yet if it was being prosecuted, maybe we would hear more of a hue and cry to change it.

It is demeaning to the American people. It is damaging to the rule of law. We have been stuck with this absurd policy for years, even though almost everybody knows--and most say privately--that it makes absolutely no sense. It is beneath the dignity of a great country.

But I also say it not only helps strengthen Fidel Castro's grip on America, it has a huge advantage for our European competitors who are building relationships and establishing a base for future investment in a post-Castro Cuba.

When the Castro era ends is anybody's guess. I was a student in law school here in Washington shortly after the Bay of Pigs. I remember people talking: It will be any minute now--any minute now--Castro is out.

Well, I graduated in 1964, 35 years ago, and he is still there. President Castro is not a democratic leader; he is not going to become one. But maybe it is time we start pursuing a policy that is in our interest, not in a lobbyist's interest or somebody else's interest.

I should be clear about this amendment. It does not--I repeat and underscore that--lift the U.S. embargo. It is narrowly worded so it does not do that. It permits travelers to go there but to carry only their personal belongings. We are not opening up a floodgate for imports to Cuba.

It limits the value of what Americans can bring home from Cuba to the current amount that we Government officials could bring back. That is $100. You are not going to start a huge trade in Cuban goods of whatever sort for $100, especially some of the more popular Cuban goods.

It reaffirms the President's authority to prohibit travel in times of war, armed hostilities, or if there is imminent danger to the health or safety of Americans.

Those who oppose this amendment, who want to prevent Americans from traveling to Cuba, will argue that spending dollars there helps prop up the Castro government. To some extent that is true, because the Cuban Government does run the economy. It also runs the schools, the hospitals, maintains roads. As is the U.S. Government, it is responsible for a full range of social services. Any money that goes into the Cuban economy supports the programs that support ordinary Cubans.

There is a black market in Cuba because no one can survive on their meager Government salary. So the income from tourism also fuels that informal sector and goes in the pockets of ordinary Cubans.

It is also worth mentioning that while the average Cuban cannot survive on his or her Government salary, you do not see the kind of abject poverty in Cuba that is so common elsewhere in Latin America. In Brazil, Panama, Mexico, or Peru, all countries we support openly, there are children searching through garbage in the street for scraps of food next to gleaming highrise hotels with limousines lined up outside.

In Cuba, with the exception of a tiny elite consisting of the President and his friends, everyone is poor. They do have access to some basics: A literacy rate of 95 percent; their life expectancy is about the same as that of Americans, even though the health system is focused on preventive care.

The point is that while there are obviously parts of the Cuban economy we would prefer not to support, as there is in North Korea, where we are sending aid, or China or Sudan or any country the government of which we disagree, much of the Cuban Government's budget benefits ordinary Cubans. So when opponents of this amendment argue that we cannot let Americans travel to Cuba because the money they spend there will prop up Castro , remember what they are not saying: The same dollars also help the Cuban people.

We are not going to weaken President Castro's grip on power by keeping Americans from traveling to Cuba. History has proven that. He is as firmly in control now as he was 40 years ago. So let us put a little sense into our relationship with Cuba. Let's have a little more faith in the power of ideas.

I would rather have U.S. citizens down there speaking about democracy than to have the only voice being the Government's voice speaking about our embargo. Let's have the courage to admit the cold war is over, but let's also get the State Department out of the business of telling our spouses and our children and our constituents where they can travel and spend their own money, especially in a tiny country where most people are too poor to own an extra pair of shoes or clothes, a country that poses no security threat to us.

This amendment will do far more to win the hearts and minds of the Cuban people than the shortsighted approach of those who continue to pretend that nothing has changed since 1959.

I am not one who supports the nondemocratic actions of the Castro government. I have spoken very critically both here and in Cuba, of the trials and arrests of those who dared to speak out for a different government. But I was struck over and over again by Cubans of all walks of life basically saying, what are we afraid of? Do we deny our people, U.S. citizens, the ability to travel in other countries around the world? When I say no, we don't stop them from going to Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, Sudan, elsewhere, countries that are even on our terrorist list, but we do here, they shake their heads in disbelief--this in a country where, during the baseball game down there, when the United States flag was carried out on to the baseball field, the Cubans stood and cheered. We ought to think about that.

I yield the floor.