A thread in GQ on traveling to Cuba was recently closed as “promoting illegal activity”.
This is ridiculous. A two second Google search shows that there are a number of legal ways to travel to Cuba, most relevantly through a licensed “people-to-people” tour agency. You can purchase a legal package tour basically as easily as you can buy a week at Club Med.
It’s absolute ignorance to claim it is illegal to travel to Cuba. The factual answer is that it is legal with the proper permits,
FYI, here is the webpage from the Department of State on travel to Cuba. Apparently, you’re not allowed to go as a tourist but can go if you get a license for any of the following purposes: “family visits; official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations; journalistic activity; professional research and professional meetings; educational activities; religious activities; public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions; support for the Cuban people; humanitarian projects; activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes; exportation, importation, or transmission of information or information materials; and certain authorized export transactions.”
In short, no, it’s not “illegal” for Americans to travel to Cuba.
Link:
I agree with sven, closing that thread was silly.
As asked it certainly sounds like a simple tourist visit. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible to work an approval under one of those exceptions (such as even sven’s People to People link). Not being hassled on return is vague enough it raises questions. Grude tacked on with a post about how they don’t don’t stamp your passport so nobody in the US would know post possibly pointing things towards illegal methods. I think there’s some reasonable room for discussion of ways to legally visit. I can also see a perception of why it could spiral further in to legal issues based on the start.
I think it should reopen. Some reopening moderation to make clear that the discussion has to stay within the bounds of legality is probably a good idea though.
Did you PM the mod as he suggested?
I received a thread report (before I saw this thread in ATMB) and re-opened the thread in question.
As I admitted when I closed the thread, I was a little fuzzy on the legalities involved (and didn’t have time to google it at the time).
I was the person who originally reported that thread, and the OP clearly wasn’t interested in doing any of those things.
He asked “How can I visit Cuba?” Those are all good answers to the question.
Closing the thread implies that it’s illegal to visit Cuba, which is not true.
Of course, some ways to visit Cuba are illegal, from the US, given the rather narrow list of exceptions.
Granted, the exceptions seem to be routinely flouted as shallow pretexts for simple tourism (which, in explicit honesty, is not permitted). And my impression is that a lot of the discussion was about methods and intentions which are not permissible by current law.
I think the report was a good thing; it allowed the participants to reset and make sure they stick to what’s actually permitted.
It is illegal to visit Cuba for shits and giggles, which is basically what he indicated he wanted to do. If he’d said “I want to visit Cuba because I want to study Spanish colonial architecture” or something it would be different.
It’s NOT illegal to visit Cuba for shits and giggles. It’s illegal to visit Cuba without proper permission, which for the average tourist that means going through an authorized tour agency. These are off the shelf package tours that anyone can sign up for- go to the website, enter your credit card, show up at the airport and BOOM you are now legally in Cuba. They don’t care if you are a distinguished cultural ambassador or just going out of idle curiosity. As long as you use an authorized channel, you are good.
These tours have a cultural focus, but that doesn’t seem mean much. They do things like go to musical performances, visit national parks, tour museums and shop at handicraft markets— more or less what a visitor to a developing country would do anyway.
Here is the OP:
I’m not sure how you read “I am only and exclusively interested in an unauthorized visit” in to this, but I see no reason to believe that the OP (and fellow readers) would know about and be dead set against the legal options.
If you get shits and gigles out of one of the authorized reason - or even along with one of the authorized reasons - it is absolutely legal.
That’s true. But he gave no reason at all.
I would guess the reason for wanting to visit Cuba comes from a desire to visit Cuba.
I’m sure it did. And without more, that is at least technically illegal.
Given that he listed many off-the-beaten-path countries he’s previously visited, it seems like he enjoys those types of experiences.
The report was a valid one, since there are legal issues associated with visiting Cuba, but I think it would be overly draconian to think he was trying to circumvent the law only by the few words he posted in the OP. That said, moderator instructions to keep it legal will ensure that he’ll only get legal advice just in case you are right.
I agree. I have no problem with the thread being reopened.
Then we need to start reporting threads about driving, because driving is just as illegal as visiting Cuba is (which is, of course, not illegal at all as long as you have the proper permit.)
Visiting Cuba is not illegal. Visiting Cuba is restricted. These are not the same thing.
Some people just really aren’t all that fun.
Well, thank goodness, Really Not All That Bright is going to let us have the thread reopened.