Featured in today's Washington Post Express newspaper.

When it comes to U.S.-Cuba matters, I’ve seen a lot in this area since I moved here in the 1990s. Some of it serious, others  like this latest gem, downright bizarre. These people are either totally ignorant or, more likely, are going out of their way to make a political statement that they do not support U.S. economic sanctions on the Cuban regime.

The owners of Cuba Libre — a place one does not go to if you wish to try authentic Cuban cuisine — are hosting Chefs from Cuba to razzle dazzle DC-area foodies. ¿Que? The event is titled, Pop Up Paladeres. Follow this link if you want to learn more about what Paladares are all about.

This takes “people to people” contact under U.S. law to a whole new level. Frankly, I am not sure that this is a proper use of general license authorities under the Cuban Assets Control Regulations.  And, guess what, later this year for a paltry $4,500 you can travel to Cuba in April to partake in a “Pop Up Paladar” in Havana.

This is truly surreal.  Folks in Cuba can barely make ends meet, much less, well, eat. Lobster? Boar chops? Likely never seen any of this on a Cuban table these days in Cuba (nor in Miami by the way). Events such as these are made-to-order for DC these days. There are political prisoners on hunger strike in Castro’s jails — some have already died. Here is the latest one, very close to death. Then again, most folk in this town have no idea whats happening outside the beltway, much less in an island 90 miles from U.S. shores.

For my friends in the area, my hope is that you save your money and not dine at Cuba Libre Restaurant. I made the mistake of trying this place in Philly a few years ago because a client had invited. I kept my counsel. The food was not good and, as I learned at the restaurant, the politics even worse.

P.S., “Arroz Con Mango,” literally means Rice with Mango. It is a Spanish expression I grew up hearing meaning, what a mess … kind of the Obama Administration’s policy in Latin America, Cuba included.

Want to “discover Cuba’s fascinating people and culture,” well you can now book a trip through one of the largest non-profit entities in the United States, National Geographic. The equestrian 1%ers, if they are so inclined to invest time and money on this trip, can learn about an “innovative project in promoting equine care.” Really?! Let’s hope National Geographic lawyers have done their due diligence. Among other things, any use (i.e., trafficking) of properties in Cuba that were owned by U.S. persons could generate political and legal interest by claim holders here in the United States.

Then there is the taxpayer-funded Smithsonian Institution that, for a mere $5,450 you are promised a “10-day cultural exchange program in Cuba includes research areas where Smithsonian curators have collaborated with their Cuban counterparts.” If you have more money to spend, more will be tacked on to your junket. Five thousand dollars to travel to Cuba?! I think Smithsonian lawyers may have some explaining to do when its Congressional overseers at the Committee on House Administration as well as the Senate Rules Committee start to ask serious questions about these trips.

But the one particular trip that really caught my attention was a journey sponsored by the Hofstra University School of Law. For about $4,500, law students will travel to Cuba to participate in a class, “field trips” included, titled “Cuba Field Study: Export Laws and Export Controls.” ¿Que? Is this serious? A quick scan of the schedule and you will soon see. For example, on their first full day in Cuba, April Fool’s Day no less, students are scheduled to do the following:

Field Trips: Havana walking tour in the morning, lunch, regional tour on a bus in the afternoon, and visit to the Hemingway Museum

That’s it. What about the class time on export controls on Day One? Not sure what touring the Hemingway Museum has to do with export controls.

For those of your who do not follow these issues on a regular basis, some background is in order. Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism. Has been since 1982. You can learn more about why countries are added to this list by visiting the State Department’s website. There are legal and political consequences stemming from the designation and, fortunately, it is a small list of countries. Cuba also also has been subject to comprehensive economic sanctions for some time that, among other things, clearly ban tourism travel.

Why a law school thinks teaching a class on export controls in a state sponsor of terrorism is a good idea is beyond me. Are Cuban regime officials going to be allowed to sit in? Are U.S. citizens going to educate the regime on how our export and sanctions law operate? Nowhere on the law school website does it clearly say that Cuba is under a comprehensive embargo pursuant to the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA), among many other federal laws. This tells me that folks at the law school oppose U.S. policy and will likely use the venue to mock U.S. laws or, worse, teach folks about the Constitutional “loopholes” that can be used to get around U.S. laws.

No one who travels to Cuba from the United States is allowed to see the truth about what life is like on the island.  Travelers are shielded from the political beatings of Cuban opposition leaders. Americans are not allowed anywhere near Cuba’s political jails where dissidents and freedom fighters rot away and are tortured. Child labor and prostitution, ignored. The regime’s anti-American stance is modified at all times to attract more and more dollars that are desperately needed to remain in power.

All of these “educational” and “people to people” excursions to Cuba are nothing but tourism travel. There are many more groups planning similar trips. They should not be allowed under U.S. law or the regulations. With regards to the export controls seminar it is, on so many levels, simply reckless. Cuba is a Potemkin Village 90 miles from the United States. Americans will see what the regime wants them to see. Nothing else. If you want to learn about U.S. export control laws, a very important topic at that, save your money and come to DC for a few weeks.

P.S., if you happen to be one of the law students at Hofstra and you cannot afford the trip, the law school is facilitating financing, courtesy of the U.S. Government taxpayer, through the federal student loan program

According to the U.S. government, if you factor in interest, the Communist government owes U.S. taxpayers anywhere from $5 billion to $20 billion for illegal confiscations. These claims include real property expropriations, businesses, contracts, and much more. The final figure will be much higher. There is a whole class of claimants, Cuban expats and their family, that have yet to be factored in to this equation.

The Communist party apparatchiks takes a somewhat curious approach on this issue, they just ignore it and hope it will go away; however, deep down they understand that this will not be so.  Rather than deal with this issue head on, it is doing what every good communist does when losing a battle, it muddles the issue and makes it worse.

For example a few years ago through interlocutors — some who should be prosecuted under U.S. laws for doing so — the regime tried to buy claims from U.S. claim holders. They told folks that their claims were worthless and would never be repaid in full. No one will ever get their old property back. This quixotic effort prompted a Treasury Department warning that claim holders needed U.S. government authorization before engaging in any transaction in which Cuba has an interest (more background here). It was a novel approach that may work, with some tweaking, but only when claimants are allowed to truly value their claims in a free market with a free Cuba in a democratic society that respects the rule of law and private property rights.

With regards to private property rights and rule of law in Cuba, let me save you the trouble. There are none and never will be with this government. Last week’s announcement by Communist party planners that island residents would be allowed to own two homes: a residence and a vacation home, is a revenue-generating scheme not a property reform law. In the days and weeks ahead a lot will be written about this development, including this Potemkin yarn, that this yet another sign that Cuba is headed for a China model transition. There are no private property rights in Cuba. There is no banking system to speak of to handle mortgages. Rule of law? None.

In addition to raising revenue from new taxes and remittances sent by Cuba-Americans, this announcement is the first volley in the Cuba claims battle that lies ahead. It is telegraphing to the U.S. government and bona fide claim holders, “we’re going to cloud title on all lands and there is not much you can do about it.” The truly pernicious impact of this new decree is that it seeds false hope throughout the Cuban populace. The party planners have set in motion an expectations game that they hope will pit Cuban exiles against loved ones on the island. It is an old Cuban Communist party trick. Pit family against family. They are going back to their roots, dividing people and families. If you want to understand this dynamic, look at Andy Garcia’s outstanding film on the subject, The Lost City.

With the support of the Communist party, outside groups are popping up on the internet promising a Cuban property gold rush. At an odd website called the Cuban Property Real Estate Group, viewers are encouraged to invest in Cuba and buy land. U.S. sanctions? No worries, “[w]e never said that getting to Cuba was going to be easy. But the difficulty in getting there is part of its appeal.” There are more websites out there on this issue,  but this one seems to be the most brazen in trying to get Americans to break the law. On the other side of the ledger, there are several claims groups who have been advocating a solution to this issue including: Certified Cuba Claims and the Cuba Property Rights Initiative, among others.

U.S. lawmakers and the Obama Administration should begin to take a closer look at this issue. Crafting a solution to this will not be easy, but under U.S. law one of the aims of U.S. policy is “to protect United States nationals against confiscatory takings and the wrongful trafficking in property confiscated by the Castro regime.” While it is not a pre-condition to normalizing relations with Cuba, it is one factor the President will have to consider one day when conditions on the island warrant. Right now Cuba is demonstrating it is not committed to resolving the claims issue, rather made a public commitment to make it more difficult and is playing with political fire.

The Cuban-American community is not going to fall for this trap, nor will folks who hold valid claims, or most of the people in Cuba. That’s the difference between us and them. We live in a democracy where rule of law and hard work mean something; and the majority of the people of Cuba do not believe these political troglodytes anymore. The problem will come from the very people the regime claims it does not want in Cuba, opportunity seekers looking to cash in on a fire sale.

The level of political voyeurism for U.S.-Cuba programs has damaged U.S. policy efforts on the island to help promote a peaceful transition to freedom and democracy. With regards to USAID Cuba programs, and maybe programs for other countries, these program summaries should never be released to the public. Not even redacted. Rather, they should be classified at an accurate security level and only accessible to Congressional oversight Committees as well as federal agency officials with a need to know.

Next time a report comes due, Congress and the Executive should seriously consider not making these reports public, not even through the FOIA process.  I have no interest in knowing the details of these efforts – and they just put a bullseye on the opposition on the island. That is what I elect my Member of Congress to do, sort through the details and do the right thing. If people want to influence the process, they can always right a letter, an editorial; basically, do what every other taxpayer does when he or she has an issue with something that their federal government is doing.

While I support transparency and open government, there are limits when U.S. security and foreign policy goals are concerned. The Cuban regime trolls the web for any sliver of information it can use against the Cuban opposition and dissident movement. Let’s hope CMP and all other groups that report on these matter are judicious on how they discuss about these matters. You can read more about the Cuba Money Project here.

Enacted in 1966, the same year that Leonid Brezhnev became First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, the CAA has basically afforded Cubans fleeing Communist repression since 1959 a quick and well-earned path to permanent U.S. residence and, eventually, citizenship. Why do this as a matter of policy? Because it bothered the Cuban regime, but also rewarded freedom-seekers to start anew in a country that respects rule of law and basic human freedoms. As with any law, however, it has been abused.

The CAA made sense then, and for certain individuals on the island today, it still does. Yet the Communist Party has used this law to its advantage as well. Through the years people loyal to the Cuban system or folks just tired of living an economically destitute existence, arrived in the U.S. to start a new life. While many of these folks forget Cuba once they taste what freedom is all about,  some do not. This latter crowd is responsible for the creation of Cuban regime profit centers that the Cuban government desperately needs to remain in power.

That the Castro regime has supporters living in South Florida is no mystery. This has been the case since 1959. But what a lot of people outside of Miami do not realize is how many of these people have abused our laws and established a cottage industry of regime-supporting business and travel-related enterprises that help the Cuban government stay in power. They stay within the law, so we cannot shut them down. But we can make it harder for them to do business and that is what Rep. Rivera’s bill can do if it is enacted.

What is the most pernicious is that these regime supporting businesses do as the Castro brothers have done since they came to power, they exploit the family unit to make a quick buck. They know that any public policy position that divides the family will be controversial for an American politician. Could you imagine telling a constituent that you cannot travel to visit a loved one dying from a terminal illness or attend a funeral?

The cold fact is that a majority of people traveling to Cuba today are not doing so because of an extreme humanitarian need or for some people to people program. Quite the opposite. It is tourism and leisure travel. Attend a birthday party, go to the doctor (more on this for another post), participate in a wedding, a family vacation, or just a long weekend every now and then to get away from it all.

Living in a totalitarian state is not easy. I never want to know what it feels like, but based on what my family has told me, and what former political prisoners have gone through, if you are going to come to the United States and avail yourself of our laws, such as the Cuban Adjustment Act, you have no business traveling to Cuba after you arrive here. As I have penned in these pages before, my family left and never went back. Ever. They never sent an aspirin or visited a sick relative.

Rep. Rivera’s amendment begins to close an immigration loophole that should have been closed a long time ago. Folks arriving from Cuba these days need to think long and hard about leaving the island. We should not repeal it, for there are folks on the island who may someday need it; however, the Cuban Adjustment Act is not an economic lifeline and its abuse by the regime needs to stopped.

There is a lot more that can and should be done, such as restricting remittances and clamping down on new travel by non-Cubans, but the Rivera CAA amendment is a good first step.