Cuban-Americans: Permit Cuba travel to all

CORAL GABLES, Fla., Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Cuban-Americans favor allowing all to travel to Cuba, echoing support for such a policy change in bills pending in Congress, a Florida poll indicated.

The poll, conducted Sept. 24-26, showed a significant shift from a 2002 survey that suggested only a minority supported such a measure, El Nuevo Herald reported Thursday.

The swing from 46 percent in favor of allowing all Americans travel access to Cuba in 2002 to 59 percent in the new poll was surprising, said Fernand Amandi, executive vice-president of Bendixen & Associates, a Coral Gables, Florida, firm specializing in multi-ethnic research, which conducted the poll.

Currently, only Cuban-Americans are permitted virtually unrestricted access to Cuba, the newspaper said.

There are at least three bills -- one in the Senate and two in the House -- hat would eliminate all restrictions on travel to Cuba, El Nuevo Herald reported.

The new survey shows Cuban-Americans favor a more open approach to travel to Havana, said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., a co-sponsor of one of the House bills.

The bills face opposition, though, the newspaper said.

"The majority of Cuban-Americans (in south Florida) want the Cuban people to have free elections, guaranteed human rights and freedom for political prisoners," U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a Cuban-American, said adding that she believed the ban would not be lifted.