Cuba eases restrictions on citizens leaving the island in accordance to their will. Is this good or bad news for Miami, Fla?

Good!

Oh noes! Now they have to build a fence! On the water!

I don’t think it will substantively change the exodus.

The link didn’t load for me (this keeps happening, my internet is driving me crazy). I don’t think it will affect Miami much, because the US is still not allowing flights directly from Cuba. We grant Cubans asylum when they make it to our shores. I am sure we will still get people coming, floating, over to America in the same dangerous way they do now. I guess if they go to Mexico or Canada and then come across the border somehow ilegally, then they will be able to get asylum once here.

The Cuban immigrant population contribute a great deal to the economy of Florida. Many leave Cuba because they are convinced they can build a business for themselves here, and their entrepreneurial spirit is frustrated by Cuban Communism. So I am sure Florida will do just fine absorbing any new flow. The biggest looser is likely to be Cuba. It’s a “worker’s Paridise” that needs search lights and machinegun nests to keep the worker’s in. Any opening to escape through helps show how bankrupt the system is.

Hm…

“dissidents may continue to face restrictions. So will doctors, scientists, athletes, members of the military and others considered key contributors, as well as those who face criminal charges.”

So anyone who could ostensibly afford a plane ticket would be restricted anyway, and the poor are still going to have to sell their organs or children on the black market in order to pay some Floridian fisherman to ferry them to Miami.

Doesn’t change a damn thing.

Who cares what Miamians think? I sure don’t. Miami doesn’t make US foreign policy, Washington does.

This is good for Cubans. That is what matters.

@elbanditoroso Is this about what Miamians think? Or, simply a question about the impact it might have on Miami, which last I checked is part of the United States. If you are American then don’t you care about how it affects our country? The question is about Cuba’s policies changing, not ours. I am very happy if the Cubans are afforded more freedom and ability to travel, don’t get me wrong, but being happy for Cubans is not mutually exclusive from considering how it affects America. It would be interesting if Castro finally released some of his hole on his people if America would actually do away with their asylum policy for Cubans. I guess as long as FL is a swing state that won’t happen.

I’m waiting to see if we change policy for Venezuelans as Chavez more and more turns Venezuela into a communist like country. I have a close friend whose sister was accepted to a university here in America, did everything right applying for a student visa, and America will not let her in. She was told her two sisters and mother are already in America and stayed, they stayed here legally by the way, all done above bpard and honestly, and they won’t give her a student visa, because they don’t believe she will return to Venezuela. Well, I would bet a huge percentage of people who come here on student visas don’t return. And, Chavez is seizing property and bank accounts, and many other moves that are just like Castro.

My point is that I don’t care how it affects Miami in particular. I think that the net effect is positive for the USA (as a whole), whether it is specifically good or bad for Florida as a state.

This obsession with anti-anything-Cuban has gone on for 50+ years and was silly for the last 45.

@elbanditoroso What do you mean anti-Cuban? Cuban people? Or, having the embargo? Or, not allowing nonstop flights (we did allow flights for a short time).

@JLeslie – all of the above.

For 50 years there has been a major enmity between the people who came over before the revolution (roughly 1959) and people who tried to get here after. The ‘old timers’ have for years resisted any normalization with the Cuban government and have been less than hospitable to the boat people and other people who were able to escape.

In addition, for around 40 years, that old Cuban group essentially strangled any possibility of any attempts to have better relations between the US and Cuban governments. Not to say that we could have been best buddies, but the US was strangled from even talking to Cuba because of that lobby.

We as a country should have normalized relations 30+ years ago.

But that’s not even the point. Whether the Miamians like it or not, freedom of travel for Cubans is a good and positive thing.

@elbanditoroso Those Cubans are getting older and older. :) Although, there are some younger ones who hold similar views, but the percentages are fewer.

I think it is outrageous people can not travel to see their family. Just awful. One thing to not allow the sale of goods, but to forbid Americans from going to visit is disgusting to me. I understand why America does not allow Cubans to easily come here to visit though, but I find it very sad.

I also believe that if many years ago things had been much looser, the whole thing might have fallen apart a lo time ago. Who knows, maybe Castro would be gone by now. An older Cuban coworker once said to me, “Cubans are Repulicans, because they believe Kennedy made a dirty deal.”

The first Cubans who came over tended to be educated, upper class, a different social class than the boat lift and most of the people who float over now hoping to make it to sure before dying. But, of course it is an unfair comparison now that Cuba has been under communist rule for so long.

Kennedy got into a pissing contest with Castro and both countries have been assholes about it. The trade embargo should have ended decades ago. Both countries would be better off and money and industry would have been generated rather than wasted and lives on both sides would have been better.