Families of jailed Cuban protesters blocked from meeting US officials
by Thomas Gaist Miami Herald
Family members of prisoners in Cuba held for holding anti-Castro demonstrations met with US officials yesterday, but instead of coming to the aid of imprisoned dissidents, the White House instead barred them from traveling to the United States for meetings with White House officials, The Miami Herald reported.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that because of an earlier security threat against US diplomats in Cuba, Cuba-born US citizens were “not allowed to go to the United States for meetings with Department of State, or for meetings with the intelligence community, and we’ve communicated that to the government of Cuba.”
The White House said that no official meetings had been cancelled, but added that government officials “would have preferred that this matter be handled through diplomatic channels, but that is not possible.”
McClellan said that the United States was not in direct contact with the families.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is a co-sponsor of a bill that would allow Cuban-born Americans to travel to the United States for official functions in the current lame duck session of Congress.
The bill would also authorize the Secretary of State to facilitate travel for “families or other approved persons,” McClellan said, and to issue visas for people who have relatives in the United States to attend official functions.
The law would be amended to specify that it applies to people who would also be able to legally enter the United States on a visitor visa with a permanent residence, like family members or those with “special relationships.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is co-sponsoring the bill, said earlier in the week that his party was concerned that the administration’s position on Cuba appeared to be “shifting, because we think that at the end of the day, Cuba
