While all eyes are on Washington for the next stage in opening Cuba to American travel, it might be worth at least a glance toward New York. That’s where a lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, is challenging the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s right to compel American travelers to Cuba to answer questions about their expenditures while in Cuba. (It’s not illegal, per se, for U.S. citizens to actually go to Cuba. But it is illegal to spend money there absent formal authorization from OFAC.)
The suit, filed by the non-profit, legal advocacy group Center for Constitutional Rights, says the policy forces travelers to “incriminate themselves.”
Meanwhile, no member of the 27-member Florida Congressional delegation has signed the “Freedom To Travel To Cuba Act,” sponsored by Massachusetts Democratic Rep. William Delahunt – and signed so far by more than 150 members of Congress.