So President Obama has loosened travel restrictions to Cuba–but only for people of Cuban descent. So if my neighbor and I are both American born citizens but my neighbor’s mom was Cuban, he is allowed to travel to Cuba but it is illegal for me, and I would probably get a fine if the government found out. The 1964 Civil Rights act prohibits discrimination by national origin.
My question: Does this unequal prohibition violate my right to equal protection under the law? Why not?
I wondered the same thing, but then I heard that travel is only permitted to visit family (within a certain degree of relation). So, not all Cuban-Americans are permitted to travel to Cuba.
Note that restrictions were already in place and permitted only for the purposes of visiting family. Obama merely increased the permitted frequency and extended the definition of what “family meant.” So travel is not restricted to Cuban Americans, but those who have family living in Cuba.
So if my father is British and working in Cuba, I can go (as a non-Cuban American)? It’s a stupid law. North Korea, Sudan, Burma and Turkmenistan are more brutal governments, yet we can go there.
Yes, but ex-pats of those countries aren’t a critical voter block in a swing state.
What equal protection? Can you cite the part of the constitution you mean?
I see nothing about the right to travel in the US Constitution. Generally speaking, whatever isnt there is controlled by the whims of the state and federal government. I cant even see this going to SCOTUS. Under what grounds would you sue?
*
The 1964 Civil Rights act prohibits discrimination by national origin.*
First off, thats not part of the constituion, its just a federal law. Secondly, if you read it it mentions nothing about travel. It mostly focuses on social services and employment.
International relations, the giving of visas, and travel are handled by a variety of laws and agencies. Some of this is clearly linked to national security. It would be hard pressed to get some kind of right to travel from this, especially when the root password to your rights is ‘national security interests.’
That is part of the constitution of the United States of America.
Right. So if my coworker (a female) gets 10 weeks maternity, then so shall I? Or when slave families get reparations? Or when poor people get free healthcare but I dont?
You need to make a better case than just pointing at the 14th amendment, which doesnt specifically mention travel either. The state dept and SCOTUS will find you as convincing as I do.
I wasn’t agreeing with the premise, only pointing out that the EPC is part of the constitution.
HorseloverFat: Would you please use apostrophes where appropriate?
I don’t think the EPC argument is really that untenable. First, racial classifications and ethnicity classifications are pretty roundly despised by the courts and, of course, subjected to strict(-in-theory-fatal-in-fact) scrutiny. (Racial classifications seem to be a subset of ethnic classifications, but the Court, formerly at least, appeared to identify what we call ethnicity as race, as in “the Chinese race.”) Third, we know from cases like Yick Wo that facially-neutral laws will be scotched if they can be shown to be applied in a race- or ethnicity-conscious way.
I did not forget my second point, but it is the crucial question: Is this an ethnicity classification? The law is expansive in terms of the required degree of relation (up to second cousins), furthermore, anyone who lives in the United States with a permitted traveler as a family member will also be permitted to travel to Cuba. The major beneficiaries of this law will be not British-Americans, nor African-Americans,* but Cuban-Americans alone. It is hard to understand a law that privileges the descendants of one culturally-cohesive group as anything other than an ethnicity classification.
Furthermore, if the rational purpose (the standard if it does not affect a protected class) of the law is to facilitate familial bonds, the law is both underinclusive (some genuine relatives are just too remote) and overinclusive (the live-with exception is clearly fraught with potential abuse).
I don’t think this is a slam dunk – few good-fatih, real-deal Constitutional questions are. I can also see prudential doctrines standing in the way (notably, standing and political questions, the latter reflecting the courts’ aversion to arbitrating the nations foreign policy). Nevertheless, I don’t think the complaint is altogether fatuous.
And this happens when?
To the best of my knowledge, each time you give birth or father a child, you get leave. It used to be just for women until some people cried “Foul!”
The Supreme Court has recognized a right to travel abroad. The State Department cannot condition the issuance of a passport on a willingness to sign a loyalty oath, for instance. This means less than one might think, however. The existing travel restrictions get around it by forbidding a US citizen from spending any money in Cuba, effectively making travel impossible.
The loosened restrictions could well run into ethnic-origin equal-protection problems if they applied to all Cubans and no one else. But by being limited to family members, they might be seen to serve a legitimate purpose.