Manuel Chirino of Miami hugs his children, Manuel Jr., 11, and Maria, 10, after they arrive in Miami from visiting grandparents in Havana who have been unable to leave the island. / Andrew Itkoff for USA TODAY

MIAMI -- The stories of past Cuban migrations to the United States are filled with harrowing tales at sea.

The 1980 Mariel Boatlift saw U.S. watercraft packed with more than 100,000 Cubans fleeing the island. The rafter crisis of 1994 saw tens of thousands more braving the 90-mile voyage across the Florida Straits on inner tubes, Styrofoam vessels and cars converted into floating barges.

Starting Monday, a new kind of migration commences as the communist government eliminates a long-standing restriction on Cubans' ability to leave the country, with its population of more than 11 million. And this time, instead of pushing out to sea and riding the Gulf Stream, the route to the U.S. could take Cubans on a meandering tour of foreign airports, visa offices and difficult land crossings.

Yoani Sanchez, a popular blogger in Havana, said most Cubans have been eagerly awaiting this day since the government announced the change in October. She said people on the island are positioned like runners crouched into the starting blocks on a track.

"On your mark, get set, go," Sanchez, 37, said in a telephone interview. "The majority of Cubans are very enthusiastic about this."

The change could significantly alter the complicated relationship between the governments of the United States and Cuba, a half-century-old feud that nearly ignited a nuclear war and has even outlived the Cold War that spawned the standoff.

Americans have long called on Cuba to grant more freedoms to its people, so the new rules could prompt Washington to rethink its 50-year-old embargo on the island and restrictions on most Americans from traveling there. If the new rules lead to another mass migration, President Obama and Congress may need to alter the policy granting most Cubans legal status once they touch U.S. soil.

Cuba experts want to see whether all Cubans will truly be free to travel before having those discussions, because they fear that the changes could just be a ploy by Cuban President Raúl Castro to win more concessions from an Obama administration that has already eased restrictions for Americans traveling to Cuba.

"They're not doing this because the Castro brothers became nice guys all of a sudden," Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., whose family fled Cuba, said of Raúl Castro and his brother, Fidel Castro, who ran the country for five decades before falling ill and stepping down in 2008.

In the October announcement - where they revealed that Cubans no longer need to obtain an elusive exit visa to make any trip off the island - officials made clear that the government could still deny travel to Cubans for reasons of defense, national security and "other reasons of public interest." The new rules specifically forbid people involved in "economic development," scientists and people facing criminal charges to leave. Cubans must also have a valid Cuban passport, so applying for and renewing one could prove another obstacle.

During a meeting two weeks ago with Health Minister Roberto Morales, the nation's health care professionals were told that they would benefit from the new travel rules, according to the Associated Press. But most Cubans won't know until they try to leave.

"Whenever they make a decision like this, you never know what's behind it, what the motivations are," said Mario Soler, 46, a Cuban now living in South Florida with nearly 1 million other Cuban Americans. "They're the only ones who know how this is going to work."

If Cubans are allowed to leave in droves, and many find their way to U.S. soil, it will provide a dramatic test of America's policy toward Cuban immigrants and pave the way for the first significant shift in U.S.-Cuban relations in nearly a half-century.

Under the "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy unique to citizens of Cuba, any Cuban caught at sea is returned to the island, while those who touch U.S. soil are generally granted legal residence. From 2000 to 2010, more than 30,000 Cubans a year became legal U.S. residents.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government severely restricts travel to Cuba. Only Americans with relatives on the island and those going on educational, religious or artistic licenses can legally travel there.

"It's a political move on the part of Raúl Castro to put pressure on the United States," said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. "Now Raúl can get up and say, 'I'm allowing my people to travel, why don't you let Americans travel to Cuba?' That's what it's going to be - a pressure point."

The influential Cuban-American community in Florida, a key voting bloc in the massive swing state, has long pressured Washington to maintain an economic embargo on the island. But Obama has done well in his two elections among Cuban Americans, signaling that younger Cubans may be more open to easing travel rules.

The changes in travel restrictions could also be viewed as the latest in a series of steps that Raúl Castro has undertaken to remove what he called "excessive prohibitions" on Cubans and a state-controlled economic system that has long been languishing.

Since he assumed power, Castro has allowed Cubans more access to cellphones and computers, let them stay in tourist hotels previously off-limits to them, granted more licenses to open private businesses and, for the first time in the history of the revolution, let Cubans buy and sell their cars, apartments and houses.

Philip Peters, vice president of the Arlington-based Lexington Institute, said Castro understands that many Cubans will permanently flee the island when given permission to travel. But he said that Cuban officials also see the economic benefit of letting people travel more freely, where they can make more money and, hopefully, send it home.

"I think they decided to take the leap, and they're making a bet that they're going to be stronger for this," Peters said. "Cubans who have been involved in the deliberations - economists who have studied migration - they talk about circularity. If they allow Cubans to travel freely, they're going to be better off."

Christopher Sabatini, senior policy director at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, agrees that the Cubans see this as a money-making venture. But he said there are other motivations involved.


Allowing some Cubans to travel more freely, he said, provides a "distraction" from the still-languishing economy and a "safety valve" to release some of the steam building up in the dissident community.

"It's never that easy with Cuba," Sabatini said.

Who will take them?

The change Monday eliminates the requirement that Cubans obtain an exit visa - known as the "carta blanca," or "white card" - before leaving the island. Most countries require citizens only to have a passport and a visa from the receiving country.

The question now becomes: What countries will receive them?

Bahamian Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell expressed the fears of many in the region when he said that Cubans traveling to the Bahamas under the new rules must be viewed as potential immigrants.

"The question we have to be preparing for is whether or not there is going to be any rush for the door as a result of the change," Mitchell told The (Nassau) Tribune last month.

Suchlicki said even European countries with strong ties to Cuba - already saddled with their own immigration challenges on the economically battered continent - are reluctant to accept large numbers of Cubans who may decide to stay.

"They're not going to give them tourist visas because they know people are going to stay," Suchlicki said. "Spain? They don't want 5,000 Cubans roaming the streets."

Some countries allow Cubans to travel there without a visa. But Armando Garcia, the Cuban-born president of Marazul Charters, which operates direct flights between the U.S. and Cuba, said that list isn't very enticing.

"Those are countries that people are not interested in - Venezuela, Ecuador, some African countries, the old Soviet bloc," he said. "People really want to travel. But many people say 'Yeah, but to where?' "

The U.S. has granted more than 15,000 tourist visas a year to Cubans, but State Department officials said they will closely monitor the new travel rules, with State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland emphasizing that "our own visa requirements remain unchanged."

"We are not shy in all of our public and private comments on Cuba that we want to see the human rights of the Cuban people respected," Nuland said after the changes were announced. "This is a certainly a step."

But there is another way. Cubans have gone to other countries and made their way to the U.S.

"Other countries are viewed as a step in the ladder," said Zoraida Colina, 48, a Cuba native who left the island three years ago and now lives in Newport News, Va. "You go to Ecuador, for example, and from there you make your way to Mexico."

Cubans have increasingly used the southwestern U.S. border with Mexico to gain access to the USA. In 2010, 6,795 Cubans presented themselves at ports of entry in San Diego, Tucson, El Paso and Laredo, Texas. By 2012, that number had increased to 10,757, according to data from Customs and Border Protection.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said U.S. officials have been working with governments in Central and South America "on migration issues to enhance our mutual security," and cautioned would-be travelers from Cuba about the perils of the trip.

"The United States does have contingency plans in place to deter and respond to such changes either in the maritime or land environments," Chandler said. "Just as there are dire risks involving sea journeys from Cuba, Cubans transiting Central America and Mexico to reach the U.S. often face extremely difficult circumstances, to include threats from criminal organizations that prey on migrants in the region."

To start the trek, Cubans are looking far and wide. Sanchez, the blogger, said word has spread quickly around the island - through e-mail, text messages and handwritten lists - of countries that don't require visas for entry. Ecuador and Singapore are atop the list.

"They'll go to Norway or Chile or Zimbabwe - the initial destination doesn't matter," she said.

Sabatini said officials throughout Latin America, especially in Mexico, are considering visa restrictions on Cubans to avert mass influxes.

"They're scrambling behind the scenes figuring out what to do," Sabatini said.

In a statement, Canada's office of Citizenship and Immigration said that it will handle new Cuban visa requests no differently than in the past.

"This development puts Cuba in the same situation as other countries in the region," the statement read. The Canadian agency emphasized that Cubans must apply for a visa and meet several requirements before it is granted, including the assurance that they "will leave Canada voluntarily at the end of their authorized stay."

'A lot of hope'

While many may want to leave Cuba - for work trips, vacations or permanent departures - getting out is not so easy in a country where most people receive meager state salaries and rely on a bare-bones black market.

Cuban officials last year said the average Cuban salary had risen to the equivalent of $19 a month. That means people who aren't receiving money from relatives abroad will have a tough time paying for trips.

"It'd be nice if they could travel and someone from outside the country didn't have to pay for their trips," said Rafael Nodarse, 48, who left Cuba for Miami 12 years ago.

That has left people taking advantage of some new changes, and selling their cars, houses and apartments.

"A 1956 Chevrolet, if it's in good shape, if you've painted it, repaired it - you can sell it for $25,000 (U.S. dollars)," Sanchez said. "For a family that is going to start a new life in a new place, that $25,000 can pay for the flights, for rent, for a down payment on a house."

Money issues aside, Julia Castillo says the excitement in Cuba is palpable. After returning last week from a trip to visit relatives in Sancti Spiritus, Castillo said the possibility of traveling anywhere they want is all that Cubans could talk about.

"People have a lot of hope," said Castillo, 72, who left the island two years ago and now lives in Clewiston, Fla. "They believe it."

Sanchez said she will take her place in line Monday to see whether she can leave. The dissident said her passport is filled with visas from other countries, but she has repeatedly been denied Cuba's exit visa. For instance, in 2008, she won the Ortega y Gasset prize for digital journalism, but could not go to Spain to accept it. She was invited to Copenhagen in 2010 after winning the Danish Center for Political Studies Freedom Award, but again, she was denied travel rights. In 2011, the U.S. State Department named her one of its International Women of Courage, but again, she could not accept the honor.

When asked where she would travel first, Sanchez says she wants to go to places that have had similar struggles, like Chechnya. She wants to visit friends in Spain, Italy, Germany, Chile and Brazil. She also wants to visit New York, Silicon Valley in California and the "northern Cuban state" of Miami.

But Sanchez insists that she will not leave her homeland without being guaranteed one thing: "If it's not with a return trip, I'm not going anywhere."

Copyright 2015

Read the original story: Cuba's easing of travel signals a sea change of hope

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