From basketball to table tennis to girls' softball, Cuban teams have been blocked from competing in international tournaments on U.S. soil.
This week, journalists Dariel Pradas and Reed Lindsay take a look at the de facto travel ban on Cuban athletes that could include the World Baseball Classic and even the Olympics.
Also:
- Former Trump officials make millions lobbying administration
- Expedia dodges lawsuit over Cuba bookings
- Trump keeps WWI law against Cuba in place
- DoJ busts Florida smuggling ring
Playing Dirty: Rubio’s War on Cuban Athletes
Since Donald Trump assumed the presidency, the State Department has prevented dozens of Cuban athletes from competing in tournaments in the United States.
“No U.S. president has ever gone to such lengths to target Cuban athletes,” said Gisleidy Sosa, international relations director of Cuba’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER).
In June, for example, all 17 members of Cuba’s national women’s volleyball team were denied U.S. visas for a major tournament in Puerto Rico, according to INDER. Hear from the players themselves in OUR LATEST VIDEO.
Athletes or Terrorists?
The letter the Cuban women’s volleyball team received from the U.S. embassy in Havana said the denial was to “protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security threats.”
They were just the latest athletes to have their dreams punctured by a Cold War-era policy of hostility toward Cuba orchestrated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Other victims include table tennis players, Cuba’s national men’s basketball team, senior track-and-field athletes, and a softball team composed of nine and ten-year-old girls...
Read the FULL ARTICLE on the de facto travel ban written by Dariel Pradas and Reed Lindsay.
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In Other News
Former Trump officials make millions lobbying administration. The government relations firm Continental Strategy has added dozens of clients to its portfolio since Trump assumed office, including several Latin American governments seeking to influence the administration, Lee Schlenker writes in Responsible Statecraft. Continental was created by Carlos Trujillo, a Cuban-American hardliner and former ambassador to the OAS during Trump's first term. Its lobbyists include Marco Rubio’s former chief of staff Alberto Martinez and former USAID administrator John Barsa, also a Cuban American.
Expedia dodges lawsuit over Cuba bookings. In April, the first jury decision in a Helms-Burton Title III lawsuit found Expedia Group and three other booking companies liable for tens of millions of dollars for allegedly trafficking in property claimed to have been owned more than six decades ago by the family of a Cuban-American man. But in a surprise decision last week, U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno set aside the verdict and ruled in favor of the booking companies. The case is expected to be appealed.
Trump keeps WWI law against Cuba in place. On August 29, President Trump renewed the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) as it applies to Cuba, effectively maintaining the six-decades-old U.S. embargo. The law is a war-time provision dating from 1917 that is now only applied to Cuba and is a key part of the legal framework that sustains U.S. sanctions on the island. Trump is not alone. Every year since 1963, U.S. presidents, both Democrat and Republican, have reissued the memorandum. Read our article about TWEA.
DoJ busts $18M Florida smuggling ring. Twelve people were charged for their involvement in a smuggling operation that facilitated the entrance of thousands of Cubans to the United States with fake documents, according to the Department of Justice. Most of those charged are residents of Florida. The operation, the department said, took in more than $18 million since 2021 by charging Cubans thousands of dollars for fake European citizenship documents and U.S. visa waivers through a “sham immigration business.”
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