WASHINGTON (ABP) — A bipartisan group of congressmen is asking the United States Treasury Department to explain why it has instituted new policies that could severely limit Americans' religious and humanitarian travel to Cuba.
The letter, which began circulating to House members for their signature Feb. 16, urges officials in the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, to explain an apparent clampdown in recent months on Cuba travel licenses for several mainline Christian denominational groups.
“Over the past several months, we have become aware that a number of long-established national U.S. religious institutions, who in the past have received licenses from OFAC allowing them regular travel to Cuba to develop and maintain relations with church counterparts there, are now suddenly being denied their licenses for reasons that fail to make sense and do not appear well-founded,” read the letter, whose chief authors are Reps. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).
In June, Treasury officials informed the Alliance of Baptists that its license for travel to Cuba had been suspended, pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations that a group from an Alliance church in Alabama had misused its license to visit tourist sites. According to Stan Hastey, the Alliance's executive director, Treasury has not informed him any further about the investigation's outcome. “Our license has expired in the meantime,” Hastey said.
A Treasury spokesperson told an Associated Baptist Press reporter Feb. 23 that the department does not comment on investigations.
Since then, several other religious organizations with long track records of work in Cuba have been denied travel licenses. The groups include the American Baptist Churches, the United Methodist Church, the Disciples of Christ and the National Council of Churches.
Due to the U.S. government's economic embargo on Fidel Castro's communist regime and corresponding travel restrictions, religious groups must use renewable travel permits for religious activity to enable U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba. The permits are granted through OFAC.
At issue is a change in OFAC's interpretation of its own policy for Cuba licenses. Under the change, denominational bodies and other religious groups that are not local congregations have been instructed to apply for their licenses under a different part of the department's regulations than the section under which they had previously applied. The old section also was open to local congregations, and placed few restrictions on the numbers of members who could travel under the license.
But the new section is one designed for individuals traveling to Cuba for religious purposes or “other religious organizations” that don't qualify under the first section's meaning of “religious organization” — which has not changed.
“We are disturbed that OFAC appears to be defining what is and is not a religious organization, and that its operating definition appears to be prejudiced against recognized, mainstream national religious institutions,” the congressional letter read.
The new section under which denominational groups have been asked to apply restricts travel to no more than 25 persons per trip — and no more than four trips per year. In addition, it requires the applying organization to provide the names of all travelers on these trips when they make their license application. Licenses may be renewed annually.
The letter-writers said that kind of restriction would make it virtually impossible for many trips to Cuba that had taken place previously.
“During the time between submitting an application to OFAC and the trip departing for Cuba, there will occasionally be a turnover in church personnel and/or changes in church relationships,” the congressmen said. “Whether a trip to Cuba is being organized at the national or local organizational level of the religious institution, the final list of participants on any given trip can only realistically be finalized on a much shorter timeline. The new regulations requiring the final list of travelers more than a year ahead of time excessively burden religious organizations and restrict church-to-church contact.”
The section under which local congregations may still apply does not have such restrictive rules.
A spokesperson for the Treasury Department said Feb. 23 that the new policy was designed to prevent abuse of Cuba travel licenses.
“OFAC became aware that a number of large organizations were abusing their religious travel licenses by soliciting participation beyond their own organizations for trips to Cuba, yielding less control of the travel groups and their activities,” said Stephanie Millerwise, in a statement e-mailed Feb. 23 to ABP.
She continued: “The religious travel licensing policy was modified, after consultation with the State Department, in hopes of eliminating such abuses. The broader licenses are still available to smaller organizations, such as churches and similar congregational units, where leaders of the groups are more likely to know the individuals personally and are able to more closely monitor the specific program of religious activities in Cuba.”
Millerwise pointed an ABP reporter to a letter that OFAC Director Robert Werner sent to Cuba licensees last year warning them against abusing their travel permits. Although Treasury officials at the time neither confirmed nor denied any particular cause for the letter, it came shortly after investigative reporting by the Miami Herald that exposed a Florida-based religious group had used its travel license to solicit Cuban-Americans who wanted to take trips to visit family members in Cuba.
But a congressional aide who has been working on the issue said that wasn't a satisfactory answer for why Christian groups with lengthy Cuba track records have been denied licenses and forced to re-apply under more restrictive guidelines.
“I still think that it doesn't get to the heart of the problem of, by what right does our federal government decide what constitutes a religious organization?” said Cindy Buhl, McGovern's legislative director. “They're telling, you know, the Presbyterian Church (USA) that they're not a religious group, that only a local congregation qualifies as a religious group. I think that's a real fallacy, and it establishes a precedent that a lot of us would not like to live with.”
Hastey, who, along with other religious leaders met with State Department officials in July to discuss the Cuba travel situation, said it was clear to him the policy changes were coming from administration higher-ups.
“My hunch is that this policy…is an effort to appease hard-line Cuban-Americans who are accusing President Bush of not fulfilling his campaign promises to get tough on [Cuban dictator] Fidel [Castro],” he said.
Buhl said she thought that administration officials should think twice about the implications of restricting Americans' religious travel to the island nation. “I would think that the Bush administration wouldn't want that either, if they really sat back and thought about it. But Cuba really puts blinders on this administration in particular.”
State Department officials did not return an ABP reporter's inquiries for comment on this story by press time.
Lee, who sits on the House International Relations Committee, questioned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the situation during a Feb. 16 hearing. The congresswoman said the travel restrictions will harm efforts to make Cuba more free.
“The collective impact of the denial of these licenses is to really interfere with and impede, I believe, the establishment of relationships, the long-term relationships, between national churches and their local congregations, as well as to significantly limit the scope of church- to-church relations between churches in the United States and churches in Cuba,” Lee said, according to a hearing transcript. “Whatever our relations are with Cuba and the United States, we shouldn't be taking measures that redefine denominational structures and interactions between the United States and which also restricts religious freedom and harms the relationship between churches in both countries.”
Rice replied that she was unfamiliar with the situation as far as “specific cases of licensing,” but continued: “I will say that I don't think that there is anything that passes for religious freedom in Cuba. And so the notion that somehow our churches going there are contributing to religious freedom in a place where religious freedom is so clearly denied, I think I would question the premise.”
Buhl said McGovern and the other letter authors are working to bring the congressmen together with State and Treasury officials as well as religious leaders to discuss the situation March 15. The letter will likely be sent to Treasury Secretary John Snow after Congress returns from its Presidents' Day recess Feb. 28.
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