Tag: TripAdvisor

Good News: Increasing U.S. Travel to Cuba

A website for travel professionals reports that recently U.S. travel to Cuba is increasing. It cites Tom Popper,  the president of InsightCuba, which specializes in travel to the island, who says it has seen an increase of 30% for such travel in May, June and July 2018 over the prior year.[1]

One of the problems many U.S. nationals encounter in planning a trip to Cuba is not finding flights to Cuba on Expedia, TripAdvisor or Orbitz. This is due to such businesses wanting to avoid hassling with the airlines that fly to the island having an obligation to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for confirming that U.S. nationals on such flights are going there for a legal reason under the OFAC regulations.

The airlines, however, have no such difficulty because when you buy a ticket to fly to Cuba, you merely have to hit “accept” on the affidavit pop-up that you are traveling under one of 12 general licenses for U.S. legal travel to Cuba, which are described on OFAC’s website. The traveler, therefore, before buying a ticket must carefully review that website and determine which of the following 12 general licenses fits the planned trip:

  1. family visits;
  2. official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations;
  3. journalistic activity;
  4. professional research and professional meetings;
  5. educational activities;
  6. religious activities;
  7. public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions;
  8. support for the Cuban people;
  9. humanitarian projects;
  10. activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes;
  11. exportation, importation, or transmission of information or information materials; and
  12. certain authorized export transactions.

U.S. travelers to Cuba also need to review this OFAC statement (para. 32) about spending in Cuba by “persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction:”

  • “There is no specific dollar limit on authorized expenses; however, in accordance with the NSPM [National Security Presidential Memorandum], OFAC is amending the CACR [Cuban Assets Control Regulations] to restrict persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction from engaging in direct financial transactions with entities and subentities identified on the State Department’s Cuba Restricted List, with certain exceptions. See 31 CFR § 515.209 and § 515.421. Consistent with these authorizations and restrictions, authorized travelers may engage in transactions ordinarily incident to travel within Cuba, including payment of living expenses and the acquisition in Cuba of goods for personal consumption there. In addition, travelers are authorized to acquire in Cuba and import as accompanied baggage into the United States merchandise for personal use only. Value imports remain subject to the normal limits on duty and tax exemptions for merchandise imported as accompanied baggage and for personal use.” (Emphasis added.)

As this OFAC statement indicates, the U.S. State Department has published its “List of Restricted Entities and Subentities Associated with Cuba as of November 9, 2017.” Direct transactions with these entities and subentities by “persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction” are prohibited. The State Department also has published “Frequently Asked Questions on the Cuba Restricted List (Nov. 8, 2017).”

Finally Americans thinking about going to Cuba should know that the two major carriers to the island—Delta and American—have taken over many routes abandoned by other airlines and with the experience of the last several years have figured out the best size of aircrafts and frequency of flights to Cuba from the gateways of New York City, Houston, Atlanta and Miami. The result? Round-trip tickets to Cuba from these gateways are inexpensive, such as $300 from JFK in New York.

The traveler will be aided in all of this by working with a company, like InsightCuba, that specializes in travel to the island.

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[1] Cogswell, Under the Radar, Cuba Market Comes Back, travelmarket report (Aug. 1, 2018).

Difficulties in Diversifying Sections of the U.S.

This blog consistently has advocated the need for more immigrants in the U.S., especially in those states, mainly rural, with declining and aging populations.[1] Several  recent articles have emphasized difficulties in pursuing such a goal.

Northern New England[2]

Northern New England has an aging, declining and overwhelmingly white population in a “huge collection of very, very small towns.” These states—New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine—therefore, need new residents, including immigrants.

A major obstacle to attracting new residents is the presence of the huge presence of whites. The  reasons for this white population “stem from a variety of factors, including a lack of big urban areas, where jobs are more plentiful, [where] a wider range of housing is available and [where] cultural differences are a little more accepted than in smaller places.”

According to Peter Francese, a demographic analyst based in Exeter, N.H., “’Housing is at the core of why there aren’t more immigrants — there’s no place for them. An ethnic person who wants to come in with a family of four or five people is not going to find a home they can afford, and there’s almost no rental housing whatsoever.’ In addition, Northern New England has the nation’s highest concentration of second homes, making the housing market especially tight.”

In addition, he said, “much of any newer housing is only for people 55 or older. If developers built housing for younger people, they would likely have children, which means a need for schools, which means higher property taxes — anathema in a place like New Hampshire, which has no income tax.”

Some New Hampshire residents came up with the following ways the state could enhance its ability to draw people of different backgrounds: “a better understanding of licensing and skills that refugees bring with them so they could more easily work here; a system of rewarding businesses that hire a more diverse array of workers; a central location with a database, speakers’ bureau and training opportunities that could help companies understand what ‘diversity and inclusion’ means and how it could benefit them; and a focus on keeping workers as much as hiring them in the first place, since many leave after finding the state inhospitable.”

A possible solution to the woes of Northern New England is a new program, Welcome Home, which is sponsored by the International Rescue Committee, a nongovernmental organization that globally provides services to displaced people, and TripAdvisor and which has started in New York City and Northern California. This program seeks to provide refugees “an understanding of where they now live and help them integrate into their new communities.[3]

Some Whites’ Difficulties in Adjusting to Minority Status

There is a need for everyone to have understanding and empathy for some white persons who are  thrust into a situation in the U.S. where they are now in the minority.

This was the theme of a sensitive article about Heaven Engle, a 20-year old white woman who does not know the Spanish language while working in a rural chicken plant where virtually all of the other workers are Latina or Latino who do not speak English. During the work-day she often feels lonely, alienated and frustrated. She also feels threatened. This takes place in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, with a mainly white and conservative population of 1,500, isolated in Lebanon County, population 140,000, which is becoming more Hispanic.[4]

Racialized U.S. Politics[5]

This young white woman’s perspective ties in with a column about U.S. “racialized” politics by David Leonhardt, a former Washington bureau chief for the New York Times. He asserts, “American politics have become more racialized over the last decade. Over the long term, that trend will probably help the Democrats — the party of the country’s growing demographic groups. In the short term, though, it presents some real risks.” (Emphasis added.)

“Many white Americans,” he continues, “felt threatened by both . . .[Obama’s] election and the country’s increasing diversity.” Then “Trump ran the most race-obsessed campaign in decades . . . . [and] won the White House, thanks largely to a surge in white support across the upper Midwest, the Florida panhandle and elsewhere.”

Now “Trump and other top Republicans have made clear that they plan to continue their racialized strategy. They evidently think it’s their best chance to win elections. Cynical as their approach is, they may be right.” Why? “About 68 percent of the voting-age citizen population is white non-Hispanic. . . .  and “these whites vote more often than nonwhites.” Moreover, “when white people are frequently reminded of their racial identity, they tend to become more politically conservative.”

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[1] E.g., More Immigrants Needed in U.S., dwkcommentaries.com (June 23, 2018).

[2] Seelye, New Hampshire, 94 Percent White, Asks: How Do You Diversify a Whole State? N.Y. Times (July 27, 2018).

[3] Vora, From Trip Advisor, a Program to Help Refugees Get to Know the U.S., N.Y. Times (July 31, 2018).

[4] McCoy, White, and in the minority, Wash. Post (July 30, 2018).

[5] Leonhardt, The  Politics of ‘White Threat,’ N.Y. Times (July 31, 2018); Klein, White threat in a browning America. Vox (July 30, 2018).