How can I travel to Cuba?

[Muffin]

Bingo.

[Muffin]

@Chez_Guevara

Restrictions on US citizens travelling to Cuba apply irrespective of the country of departure.

You can certainly buy a ticket at a Canadian airport but US customs officials based there may well note your departure to, and indeed your return from, Cuba. There is a Pre-Clearance Treaty dating from 1974 which permits U.S. customs officials to enforce American rules for entry into the United States.

Link.

That is true. Note, however, that there are direct flights between Canada and Cuba.

[Muffin]

Will there be any significant changes in the USA’s level of enforcement against its citizens and corporations by the new administration?

[Tom_Tildrum]

@Xema

True. But since your passport wasn’t required by Canada, it won’t be stamped by Canada, and so will contain no Canada-generated evidence of any trips you took beyond Canada.

But Canada will stamp the passport of an American returning to Canada from Cuba, yes?

[atomicbadgerrace]

@Muffin

Will there be any significant changes in the USA’s level of enforcement against its citizens and corporations by the new administration?

There is a lot of heated discussion going on lately between the talking heads about the possibility of open travel very soon. A bill was presented to Congress not long ago, and some Cuban-related provisions are making their way into bills going through the hoops now.

Here are some recent cites that may be of interest:

U.S. loosens restrictions regarding Cuba

H.R. 874- Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act

[Muffin]

@Tom_Tildrum

But Canada will stamp the passport of an American returning to Canada from Cuba, yes?

Yes, indicating entry into Canada without mention of Cuba.

[Sunspace]

@Chez_Guevara

You can certainly buy a ticket at a Canadian airport but US customs officials based there may well note your departure to, and indeed your return from, Cuba. There is a Pre-Clearance Treaty dating from 1974 which permits U.S. customs officials to enforce American rules for entry into the United States.

Link.

Hmm. If a US resident/citizen already legally in Canada goes to the airport, buys a ticket, and goes to Cuba, how would the US officials know? They’re either in the US, or they work in a separate ‘preclearance area’ in some airport terminals. The Cuba flight would depart from a different area.

Mind you, if they were tracking the US resident/citizen’s financial transactions, and I have no idea whether this is possible or done, they might pick up that purchase of an Air Canada ticket to Havana.

@mnemosyne

My understanding is that unless you fit into specific categories (professionals, researcher, journalists, etc) there is no way for an American to travel to Cuba legally. From 404 - Page Not Found…

For comparison, here is the Canadian government’s travel advisory page for Cuba. While it doesn’t make Cuba look like North Korea, it is worth reading. Manor tidbits I just discovered include the 25-peso departure fee, payable only in Convertible Pesos, and the fact that GPS devices are prohibited to be brought in. This means that I could not take my iPhone to Cuba.

Here’s the Cuban government’s advisory page on customs inspection in Cuba.

@mnemosyne

That being said, many Americans do travel to Cuba from Canada and Mexico and while I’m sure some people may have been stopped, I think Canada, at least, is not obligated to honour the American embargo (why should they?) and does not actively prevent Americans from traveling to Cuba from Canada. You’d have to pay for your trip using non-US currency, since none of your credit cards/bank accounts would be available to you in Cuba. I have no idea at what rate people are punished/prosecuted or even discovered for going there via Canada.

Thisis an interesting set of figures, though.

[Chez_Guevara]

@Sunspace

Hmm. If a US resident/citizen already legally in Canada goes to the airport, buys a ticket, and goes to Cuba, how would the US officials know? They’re either in the US, or they work in a separate ‘preclearance area’ in some airport terminals. The Cuba flight would depart from a different area.

Below is a link to a piece from the Ottawa Citizen dated September, 2001.

The authors quote various parties, who comment on the methods used by US customs officials based at Canadian airports. I am unable to confirm the veracity of the claims made therein.

Bruno Coulome, who runs the Fredericton-based USA Cuba Travel, says many of his American clients have been intimidated by U.S. customs agents at Canadian airports. “The clients are really scared.”

He says he has seen customs agents watching his clients check in for their charter flights to Cuba at Montreal’s Mirabel Airport.

“Many times in the last month I’ve seen U.S. customs agents waiting at the departure counter,” said Mr. Coulome, whose company handles Cuba-bound U.S. customers exclusively. He also thinks customs agents are watching for Americans arriving on flights from Cuba.

“The strategy they have is they stay at the arrival gate for Havana and they spot the travellers who walk to the counter of U.S. connecting airlines.”

Nancy Chang, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, says there are reports of surveillance in Canadian airports.

Ms. Chang is challenging the constitutionality of the fines on behalf of 400 travellers.

The U.S. customs service denies it uses surveillance operations in Canadian airports, but won’t say how it determines which travellers visited Cuba…

…Susan Ross, a California lawyer specializing in customs law, says although she suspects Canadian and U.S. authorities are informally sharing information at border points, she says most U.S. travellers are caught when they admit they’ve been holidaying in Cuba.

“People aren’t good liars,” she says. “When the agents start asking questions, people start getting nervous.”

Canadian officials deny Canadian immigration or customs officials are giving their American counterparts any information about Americans returning from Cuba to international airports with U.S. pre-clearance customs services.

It would seem that an American already legally in Canada who travels to an airport, buys a ticket, goes to Cuba, returns, and walks out of the airport has a better chance of avoiding suspicion than an American returning from Cuba and going straight to the counter of a US connecting airline. This chance is clearly diminished if information is shared between Canadian and US authorities as described above. It is even further diminished if US customs agents are indeed loitering at departure desks and asking pertinent questions.

Link.

[sailor]

Good information.

Wasn’t there a case of some American kid who was prosecuted some years back for going to Cuba? I have a very faint recollection of the incident which became national news for some reason or other.

It was like everybody was doing it and the authorities picked on some high school kid or something like that. Anybody remember that?