House to cut Cuba travel enforcement

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a huge spending bill Wednesday that tweaked U.S.-Cuba policy, making it easier for Cuban Americans to get away with illegally traveling to the communist country.

The bill, which is likely to face some opposition in the Senate, cuts off funding for enforcement of the rules that limit how often Cubans living here can visit home.

The 2009 budget also contains several revisions to Cuba policy that signal a trend toward further engagement with Cuba -- a momentum that could lead to the end of more sanctions, Cuba-watchers said. The budget bill passed the House days after the Senate Foreign Relations committee and a senior Republican on the panel issued a strongly worded report that said the embargo's isolation of Cuba wasn't working.

Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar recommended increased engagement in drug trafficking and migration but fell short of advocating a wholesale lifting of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. A group of well-known diplomats and academics at The Brookings Institute think tank is expected to issue a report Thursday that also calls for more dialogue with Cuba.

A few black representatives in Congress and aide groups were scheduled to meet Wednesday night with Cuban diplomats in Washington to discuss the state of U.S.-Cuba relations.

''All of these pieces have to be viewed in the aggregate: it's clearly a trend,'' said Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., who sponsored a bill that would allow Americans to travel to Cuba. ''The trend is to engage incrementally, and travel is a centerpiece of that. There is a momentum that's evolving here.''

Cuban-American lawmakers scoffed at the suggestion that the recent flurry might signal a significant change on Cuba.

BATTLE AHEAD

The budget bill, which passed the House on a 245-178 vote, was hatched behind closed doors, they say, and it faces a tough battle in the Senate.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, and Sen. Mel Martinez, R-FL, have told the Senate that they oppose any change in the U.S.-Cuba policy.

''There is nothing new here,'' said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a South Florida Republican. ''I'm fascinated when the press thinks all this is new, when all it is is a restatement of people's long-held positions.''

Conservative Cuban-American lobbyist Mauricio Claver-Carone said if anything, momentum for more restrictions is increasing.

''I'll begin to worry when members that formerly supported current Cuba policy switch their position,'' he said. ''Thus far, the only true momentum is the other way, as the number of supporters of current policy has dramatically increased every single Congress in the last six years,