• Submitted by: manso
• United States
• Politics and Government
• 08 / 09 / 2010

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Obama may change rules to allow more Americans to visit Cuba on educational and cultural trips.

A move by President Barack Obama to ease travel restrictions to Cuba would allow the administration to change U.S. policy toward the island even if legislation to repeal a wider travel ban isn’t approved by Congress this year.

Obama may change rules to allow more Americans to visit the island on educational and cultural trips, a U.S. official, who declined to be named because he isn’t authorized to speak on the subject, said Aug. 6. The official didn’t give additional details on what the changes would be.

“Lifting the congressional travel ban was always going to be difficult,” said Christopher Sabatini, policy director of the Council of the Americas business group, in a phone interview from New York. “This is an effort to move the policy forward in some way, but in a way that will be much more palatable to the embargo’s supporters.”

U.S. lawmakers have said since last year that they expected to pass legislation ending the 47-year ban that forbids most Americans from visiting the Caribbean island. Representative Sam Farr, a California Democrat, said in September that legislation would pass in 2009. Congressman Collin Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat, said in March of this year that a bill might pass the House in April.

“We’re confident we can get it passed,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on Aug. 6. “Restricting the right of Americans to travel to Cuba means you are punishing the American people, that just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Still, legislation in the House and Senate has yet to reach the floor. The House Agriculture Committee approved a bill in June that would end the travel ban and simplify rules governing cash transactions with Cuba.

Source: Yahoo