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Summary:
Restrictions on travel to Cuba have been a key and often contentious component in U.S. efforts to isolate the communist government of Fidel Castro for much of the past 40 years. Over time, there have been numerous changes to the restrictions, and for five years, from 1977 until 1982, there were no restrictions on travel to Cuba. Under the Bush Administration, enforcement of U.S. restrictions on Cuba travel has increased, and restrictions on travel and on private remittances to Cuba have been tightened. In March 2003, the Administration eliminated travel for people-to-people educational exchanges unrelated to academic coursework. In June 2004, the Administration further restricted family and educational travel, eliminated the category of fully-hosted travel, and restricted remittances so that they could only be sent to the remitter's immediate family. In 2005, the Administration further restricted religious travel to Cuba by changing licensing guidelines for such travel. In the second session of the 110th Congress, there were provisions easing Cuba travel restrictions in several versions of House and Senate appropriations bills, but none of these were included in the FY2009 continuing resolution. The draft House Appropriations Committee version of the FY2009 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill would have allowed family travel once a year (instead of the current restriction of once every three years) to visit aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and first cousins in addition to immediate family. The Senate Appropriations Committee version of the bill, S. 3260, had different provisions easing restrictions on family travel and travel related to the sale of agricultural and medical goods. The Senate Appropriations Committee version of the FY2009 agriculture appropriations bill, S. 3289, also would have eased travel restrictions for the sale of agricultural and medical goods. Several other initiatives in the 110th Congress would ease Cuba travel restrictions. H.R. 654 (Rangel), S. 721 (Enzi), and Section 254 of S. 554 (Dorgan) would prohibit the President from regulating or prohibiting travel to Cuba or any of the transactions incident to travel. Two bills that would lift overall economic sanctions -- H.R. 217 (Serrano) and H.R. 624 (Rangel) -- would lift travel restrictions. H.R. 177 (Lee) would ease restrictions on educational travel to Cuba. H.R. 757 (Delahunt) would lift restrictions on family travel and remittances for family members in Cuba. H.R. 1026 (Moran, Jerry), which would facilitate U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba, would also provide for general license authority for travelrelated transactions related to such sales. H.R. 2819 (Rangel) and S. 1673 (Baucus), which would ease restrictions on U.S. agricultural and medical exports to Cuba, would also lift restrictions on travel to Cuba. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, several initiatives would temporarily ease restrictions on travel, remittances, humanitarian gift parcels, and the sale of relief supplies to Cuba: H.R. 6913 (Flake), H.R. 6962 (Dodd), and S.Amdt. 5581 (Dodd) to S. 3001. For additional information on Cuba, see CRS Report RL33819, Cuba: Issues for the 110th Congress.
