Right to Travel to Cuba > News Updates > Obama May Lift U.S. Travel Restrictions to Cuba, Official Says

Obama May Lift U.S. Travel Restrictions to Cuba, Official Says

President Barack Obama may lift a travel ban on Cuban-Americans wanting to visit family in the communist nation, according to an administration official.

The Obama administration is reviewing U.S. policy on Cuba, and relaxing travel restrictions imposed by former President George W. Bush are among changes being discussed, the official said.

Obama has said it makes “moral and strategic sense” to allow family visits to the island-nation and to ease limitations on family cash remittances, said the official, who didn’t want to pre-empt coming changes in policy.

The new Democratic president, though, doesn’t intend to scrap an almost five-decades-old trade embargo against Cuba, according to the official. Such a move would require Congressional approval.

House and Senate lawmakers earlier this week proposed ending the restrictions that prevent U.S. citizens and residents from traveling to Cuba.

The changes being contemplated by the Obama administration would allow people to see relatives in Cuba as often as they wanted and put no limit on the amount of money they could send family there, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier today, citing an unidentified administration official.

Obama will highlight U.S. policies and seek changes in U.S.-Latin American relations later this month when he travels to Mexico and then to Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas.

A provision in a $410 billion budget bill for this fiscal year approved by Congress last month eased restrictions on exports and travel to Cuba.

The legislation, which Obama signed, allows Americans to visit relatives in Cuba once a year and stay for an unlimited time. Previously, family visits were limited to once every three years and for no more than 14 days.