Tag Archives: Cuba

Cuba excited the world and Cubans by announcing last month that
government-issued exit visa requirements
were going to be dropped.

Writing in Foreign Policy, Cuban Yoani Sanchez says it
ain’t a
golden age for free travel yet. ;The announced end of the
“white card” program by which official permission is required to
leave is just being recreated under a new name.
Details:

Health care professionals noticed that they were still required
to obtain permission to travel. The Cuban government defends travel
restrictions for doctors and scientists with the argument that the
“brain drain” could take many of them to countries that pay better
salaries. Thus, in the newly released law, state control is
actually strengthened over the travel of doctors, nurses,
pharmacists, and even laboratory workers.
The fine print of Decree Law 302 doesn’t stop there. The
restrictions on leaving are even more severe for other
professionals such as teachers and professors. Frightened by the
growing loss of personnel in the field of education, Cuban leaders
are trying to put a brake on escapes from the classroom. And they
are doing it in the way it has always been done, not by paying
better salaries or improving working conditions, but by force.
One of the perverse incentives unleashed by this strategy is
expected to be enrollment declines for professional, legal, and
engineering studies. If students know ahead of time that once they
graduate in certain specialties it will be very difficult for them
to travel, they will avoid getting degrees in them. A measure
intended to fight “brain drain” could generate a decrease in the
numbers who aspire to higher education….
As for the infamous White Card, it’s true that Cubans will no
longer need an exit permit to travel, but they will still need
permission to possess a passport. So, when citizens apply to get
this document, they will find out if they are among those who are
allowed to cross the national borders or if, on the contrary, they
are among the group condemned not to leave. Where once we had to
wait for the White Card, now the little blue 32-page pamphlet will
have the final word. The “permission to leave” had changed its
color and name, but still stands.

Reason on
Cuba. Just as Cuba ought to let its citizens freely leave,
America ought to let its citizens, and its citizens money and
business, freely go to Cuba. That is, end the embargo now! A free
nation lets its citizens go and do business where the citizens want
to.

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