Cuba Scraps ‘Exit Visas,’ Allowing Cubans To Travel Freely With Just A Passport
Havana’s old town is a colorful though faded grid of dilapidated houses punctuated by chess games and 1950s-era American cars. Neighbors chat from their doorways, like Estrella, who sits on a knee-high box in front of her home.
“I’d love to travel but it’s so expensive,” Estrella says, declining to give her surname for fear of reprisals from the government.
Exit visas are one of the first hurdles Cubans have had to face when it comes to travel. But a new law set to come into force today scraps the requirement for the costly “white card,” allowing Cubans to travel freely with just a passport.
“Cubans, even if they’ve never applied for an exit visa, have always felt they had to ask permission to leave, so it’s a big psychological change,” says Emily Morris, fellow at the Institute of the Americas at University College London. “It makes a difference to how they see their relationship with the state. It is no longer controlling them.”
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/14/cuba-scraps-exit-visas-allowing-cubans-to-travel-freely-with-just-a-passport/
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