Cuba to remove foreign travel restrictions for citizens

The Cuban government plans to remove many of the restrictions that have prevented its citizens from travelling abroad for decades, National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon said in an interview published Friday. Alarcon said Cuba is "working towards a profound radical reform of emigration." He gave few details in an interview with digital media's Huffington Post but did say it was a priority issue for the government.
"One of the questions that we are currently discussing at the highest level of the government is the question of emigration," he said. Alarcon said "emigration has been one of the themes most manipulated by the United States. Since 1959, it has been used as a weapon of destabilisation against Cuba and as a means of distorting Cuban reality." Cuba has imposed the travel restrictions for a half-century but they have not prevented thousands of its citizens from emigrating illegally each year, sometimes in dangerous sea voyages using rickety boats.
Since 1966, the US government has granted Cubans automatic residence if they can reach the United States. To travel abroad legally, Cubans need a permit that is valid for 30 days. It can be extended 10 times, after which they must return to Cuba or lose the right to reside in their own country. The formalities to get the required visas and permits often are accompanied by different fees that make travel abroad unaffordable for many Cubans, whose average monthly salary is less than $20.
Nevertheless, more than 30,000 Cubans immigrate legally each year. Cuban President Raul Castro announced last summer the government was planning immigration reforms that would be introduced gradually. "There is yet another explanation for these restrictions: the need to protect our human capital," Alarcon said. "The training of doctors, technicians, teachers, etc is extremely costly for Cuba and the United States is doing its best to deprive us of these human resources." Alarcon said the reform also would benefit Cubans who left their country and need permits to return. They do not have the same "profile" as Cubans who left their home country in the first years of communist rule, he said.