On the U.S. side, Bilbao is referring to the Obama
Administration’s policy of permitting unlimited travel to
Cuba by Cuban-Americans with relatives on the island. But
this week’s Cuba change is arguably more momentous, given
how long Cubans have chafed under their government’s
expensive and despised exit-visa constraints—which have
forced so many of them to make perilous raft journeys across
the Florida Straits. Raúl Castro, considered more pragmatic
than his firebrand sibling, had been flirting with abolishing
the exit visa for years as part of a reform program that last
year let Cubans begin buying and selling private property
like cars and homes. Now, starting Jan. 14, according to the
immigration reform published Tuesday in Granma, the communist
party newspaper, Cubans can freely travel abroad for as long
as two years at a time.
There are of course strings if not ropes attached—no Cuban
reform is ever without them. Valuable professionals like
doctors are likely to be exempted, to keep the
“interventionist and subversive” U.S. from “robbing
[Cuban] talent,” according to Granma; and so most likely are
dissidents. But the regime, which is being forced by economic
crisis to lay off as many as a million state workers, may be
hoping the reform will relieve some of that pressure as more
Cubans not only travel but find employment outside the island
and increase the level of remittances Cuba receives from
abroad. Washington, meanwhile, will not only have to prepare
for an onslaught of visitor visa applications in Cuba, it may
have to reconsider its controversial “wet foot-dry foot”
policy that grants residency and a track to citizenship for
Cubans who make it onto U.S. soil.
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