Cuba travel ban violator gets probation (another gets 2 1/2 years in jail)

[Mika]

Source: Miami Herald

David Margolis, 76, was sentenced to two years of probation Monday in federal court in Miami for falsely telling the government he was traveling to Cuba for religious purposes.

Margolis, a Fort Lauderdale real estate magnate, faced up to six months in prison and is one of the country's first defendants charged for violating a travel ban to Cuba.

-

Victor Vazquez, 40, of Pompano Beach was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison Friday for conspiring in the scheme. His ex-wife, Kekalani, received three years of probation, and Yury Rodriguez, a Hialeah travel agent, received a year and a day in prison.
Authorities are investigating similar violations of the trade embargo against Cuba.

According to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement complaint, more than 4,500 people paid up to $200 to travel with illegally obtained religious licenses between April 2006 and January 2007.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/272959.html

[Mika]

1. Article fails to mention that they sold these permits to thousands of Cuban-Americans.

From a Miami Herald earlier last week..

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_dade/story/267205.html

Vazquez, who had obtained five such licenses illegally, profited by selling his permits to thousands of Cuban Americans seeking to dodge restrictions that became even tighter under the Bush administration.

[murray hill farm]

2. That is disgusting.

I wish thousands and thousands and thousands of US folks would go to cuba...take pictures of the beautiful place and bring them back for the rest of us to see. It is easy to do without being punished. Just take a plane to Cancun. Leave the airport and go to any travel agent in Cancun, buy a round trip ticket to cuba and return to the airport when your plane is scheduled to leave for Cuba. when you arrive in cuba, they do not stamp your passport so there is no record that you were there and give you instead, a visa for your stay there. every once in a while, the usa will send agents to watch the airport, but they have no authority. The key is to not leave your plane from the usa and go directly to your plane to cuba, but rather to go into Cancun and then back again after that short leave and to then take your plane to cuba. I suggest that everyone go if they have the chance and see the real cuba...not the one you have heard about here in the usa.

[Mika]

3. Please don't post bad info.

US gov prosecutions of Americans and US residents who go to Cuba via 3rd countries are way up in the last 3 years. Bushco has more agents tracking Cuba travel than they have tracking Bin Laden.

It is not risk free.

[murray hill farm]

7. Nothing is risk free.

Not even the flying to get there...not even the driving to the airport to get on a plane. But, it is fairly risk free if you do not go directly from your plane from the usa to get on a plane to Cuba at the same airport. If you do not publicize it, write a book about it, go as part of an organization that is already being watched, then the chances of being caught are minuscule.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. I have travelled to Cuba,

and you need to be pretty fucking stupid to get caught.

[damntexdem]

5. Political prisoners.

[Judi Lynn]

6. I think the reason Bush's government went easy on these two is because they were trying

to make a fast buck off their fellow man! Ah, the spirit of entrepreneur-ism!

Removing the travel ban, which would be more than fine with Cuba, would bring ALL this crap to a screeching halt.

Let the Americans go there unchallenged and find out how cruel that government is in person. Don't just regale the world through propaganda decade after decade after decade. Put your money where your mouth is, and PROOVE your stupid charges!

They can't afford to do it. They are truly screwed. They've spent so much time maintaining their lie, they can't afford to throw open the doors to Americans to go visit this tiny neighbor. Everyone will be able to see our own idiot politicians have been pulling the wool over our eyes!

[iverglas]

8. the land o' the free

I travelled to Cuba five times in the late 70s and early 80s, each time making my own travel and living arrangements. Haven't had time lately ...


http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

6. (1) Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.

Real rights and freedoms. If the government here tried to place limits on where a Canadian citizen could travel, it would find itself in court -- in every courthouse in the country -- that evening. And it would lose.

Ditto in any European country you might think of.


http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html

The European Convention on Human Rights

ARTICLE 2
... 2. Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.

ARTICLE 3
... 2. No one shall be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national.

(Both instruments allow for limits on the exercise of the right that are justifiable in a democracy.)


Of course, while we spell it out, the right to liberty pretty much covers it.


Travel restrictions are sure one way to make sure that nobody in a country even knows how things are done in other places.

Imagine what might happen if US citizens were to see the Cuban health care system up close ...