TAMPA, Fla. — The Biden Administration says it plans to lift some Trump-era restrictions imposed upon Cuba.
The White House had said it would get tough on the communist nation following a government crackdown there against pro-democracy demonstrations over the past year.
Tampa is home to the third-largest population of Cuban Americans in the United States, so last summer, when pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets in Havana, Cuban Americans showed their support by doing the same here.
But over the past few months, demonstrations in Cuba have been silenced. Internet communication has been shut down.
At the same time, the Biden Administration, which had talked tough, is seeing an unprecedented wave of Cuban immigrants making their way to the U.S. border. And so, they’ve decided to end some Trump-era restrictions that they say are hurting Cuban citizens.
“After 40 years of this it weighs heavily on my life,” said Tampa Attorney Ralph Fernandez, who saw his family flee Cuba when he was just eight.
Fernandez has long been an outspoken opponent of the communist regime. But he says decades of U.S. policy changes have shown it doesn’t really matter, and that true change will have to come from within Cuba.
“You cannot choke a regime until the people within that regime are willing to die for their freedom,” Fernandez said.
The Biden plan is not quite a return to the more open policy of the Obama administration. It will, however, allow those with relatives in Cuba to visit with fewer restrictions. Groups, and those traveling for educational purposes, will face fewer hurdles.
Remittances, or money sent to Cuban relatives, which had been capped at $1,000 per quarter, will be lifted.
And soon, commercial and charter flights will be allowed to resume to cities other than Havana.
Many of Florida’s top Republicans were quick to criticize the relaxed policy, including Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“The minute you are sending more of this to the island, it’s going right into the pocket of the Cuban dictatorship. That is not going to help the people of Cuba realize freedom,” DeSantis said Tuesday at a news conference in Miami.
"I realize there may be some people in the state of Florida — not in my party but some others, politicians — who have a soft spot for dictatorships like in Cuba," he continued. "I have contempt for those views because those views do not represent that values of the State of Florida."
Of particular interest to Cuban Americans here in the Tampa Bay area, are changes in policy that reinstate the Family Reunification program. It will, they hope, ease a visa backlog of more than 20,000 Cubans trying to immigrate to the US legally.
The administration says its policies are aimed at providing assistance directly to the Cuban people, bypassing the communist government.
As to whether the change in policy means Americans will soon be able to book tours to Cuba again, there’s no word yet on whether airlines or cruise ships will consider resuming service routes that had been abruptly frozen by the Trump administration.