Law bans travel to terrorist states

Posted on Wed, May. 31, 2006

LEGISLATURE
Law bans travel to `terrorist states'
A new state law will crack down on educational trips to Cuba and the use
of state money to travel to any of the other four states designated as
`terrorist.'
BY MARC CAPUTO AND OSCAR CORRAL
mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com

TALLAHASSEE - Colleges and universities in Florida now are banned from
using state money to travel to such countries as Cuba under a law Gov.
Jeb Bush signed Tuesday.

The Travel to Terrorist States Act also prohibits spending state money
on any aspect of organizing a trip to any of the five nations listed by
the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of terror.

Miami Republican Rep. David Rivera, who has sponsored a number of
Cuba-crackdown bills, said the law was designed to stop his
constituents' tax money from underwriting Fidel Castro's regime.

Castro ''took a lot of people's land and freedom, and a lot of Cuban
Americans feel there's an abuse of the travel laws,'' Rivera said. ``We
don't think any legitimate education work can be done in a totalitarian
state.''

Though the bill sailed unanimously out of the Legislature, some
academics opposed it, saying it ultimately will lead to closed minds, as
well as closed borders. Florida International University Professor
Lisandro Perez said the law reflects ''all-around demagoguery'' and
would be challenged in court.

''The public opinion battle is over,'' he said. 'The `I'll see you in
court' round has just begun.''

Rivera said the idea for the law was inspired by the arrests earlier
this year of FIU Professor Carlos Alvarez and his wife, Elsa Alvarez, an
FIU counselor, on charges of being Cuban government agents. Carlos
Alvarez had traveled to Cuba several times.

FIU Professor Uva de Aragon said the United States should be encouraging
research on Cuba, not preventing it. For example, she said, if the
United States had more information on Iraq beforehand, it could have
avoided many mistakes.

''I don't think it's a wise policy,'' she said. ``It's important for the
United States to have people who study Cuba in order for them to be
informed of what happens in the country.''

De Aragon, associate director of FIU's Cuban Research Institute, said
she does not see a way around the law, since its scope is wide.

The travel ban takes advantage of President Bush's 2004 decision to
tighten travel restrictions to Cuba. Bush required that the U.S.
Treasury Department grant a travel license to an institution of higher
learning only if it held courses in Cuba that lasted at least 10 weeks.

Previously, trips were shorter and therefore less expensive.

Now, with the state law, a college or university would have to use
private money to underwrite the trips. State money, including salaries,
cannot be used ''to implement, organize, direct, coordinate or
administer, or to support the implementation, organization, direction,
coordination or administration of'' such a trip.

Such private institutions as the University of Miami could still
organize Cuba trips if they don't directly use state money for the
travel or the planning. But Rivera said he may consider legislation next
year that would prohibit them from receiving any state money at all if
any of their departments sponsor trips to the five states considered to
be terrorist.

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