MEXCAN
25th December 2002, 20:36
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/cu...021220_475.html (http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/cuba/US-Cuba/20021220_475.html)
Wrong way: Granny bicyclist pedals through Cuba, into trouble
Miami Herald
Nov. 2, 2002
Tim Johnson
WASHINGTON - Joan Slote, a 74-year-old grandmother and avid cyclist, is in a big fix. She took a cycling tour of western Cuba with a Toronto-based company in early 2000, thinking it was legal. It wasn't.
The Treasury Department came after her for illegal travel to Cuba. The fine: $8,305.23.
It didn't stop there: Several weeks ago, the feds sent a letter saying they might start deducting the penalty from her $1,184 monthly Social Security check.
''This whole thing has just been a nightmare,'' said Slote, a former cycling gold medal winner at the Senior Olympics who lives in San Diego. She said she depends on her Social Security income to survive.
Slote's attorney, Tom Miller of Oakland, Calif., calls the case ''outrageous,'' and has appealed to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control for a hearing. But, like hundreds of other U.S. citizens who have received fines for illegal travel to Cuba, no hearing has been set.
Even strong advocates of the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba say they are puzzled why the Treasury Department pursues people, like the cycling granny, who appear to have inadvertently broken the travel ban while some high-profile celebrity trips to the island go unpunished.
''This is the wrong target. You should go after the people who are deliberately trying to violate the law,'' said Dennis K. Hays, executive vice president of the Cuban American National Foundation, an organization that staunchly supports the four-decade-old U.S. embargo. Hays said he wanted to know if boxer Mike Tyson was fined for a Cuba trip earlier this year.
`FULL ENFORCEMENT'
The Bush administration -- which vigorously defends the Cuba embargo against congressional efforts to ease or lift it -- carries out ''fair and full enforcement of the Cuba travel embargo program,'' said Treasury Department spokesman Rob Nichols.
''The American people need to know that if they go to Cuba illegally they run the risk of being fined. We will enforce the law of the land,'' Nichols said. Has Treasury fined Tyson? ''I can't comment on ongoing enforcement matters,'' he said.
Slote is far more active than most grandmothers. ''When people find out she's in her 70s, they go, like wow!'' said Amy Olsen, a 41-year-old cycling companion from San Luis Obispo, Calif., who accompanied Slote on the trip to Cuba and faces a stiff fine, too. ``She's still doing 50- and 60-mile days, and she's fast.''
Back in 1999, Slote said she studied the brochure from Worldwide Adventures of Toronto and took note that it said, ``U.S. law does not prohibit U.S. citizens from visiting Cuba, provided you are flying from Canada or Mexico and not directly from a U.S. port.'' ''Once I read that, it never occurred to me to question it,'' Slote said.
In fact, it was incorrect. Most U.S. citizens are banned from visiting Cuba, even when they leave from third countries. Among them are for scholars, journalists, humanitarian and religious workers, and Cuban Americans with relatives on the island. ''If I had known it was illegal, I would have never gone,'' Slote said.
About 176,000 U.S. citizens are believed to have traveled to Cuba last year, most of them with U.S. licenses, although 22,000 to 25,000 Americans went without authorization, said John Kavulich, head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
The Bush administration is imposing more fines. The Treasury Department sent 200 letters to suspected illegal travelers in 2000, then 698 letters last year, Nichols said. This year, through Sept. 30, the department has sent out 391 letters, he added.
When Slote and Olsen returned, U.S. Customs officials questioned them. 'Amy said, `Let's not tell them where we were.' I said, 'Oh no, Amy, we shouldn't lie. Be honest. It's not illegal,' '' Slote recalled.
The first certified letter from the Treasury Department demanding an explanation of her trip to Cuba arrived at Slote's residence in February, while she was on a bicycle tour of Italy. She later was distracted as she tended to her son, who was dying of brain cancer.
$1,000 OFFER
Other letters followed in July, August and September. Miller, her attorney, offered the Treasury Department $1,000 to drop the matter. He included a $100 check, which he said was to be cashed only if the government accepted. The check was cashed, but no one from Treasury wrote back, he said. The president of Worldwide Adventures, Lewie Gonsalves, said many Canadians don't agree with the U.S. embargo of Cuba: ``We think you're nuts.'' Slote is still pained by being caught on the wrong side of the law.
''I don't like to do anything illegal,'' she said.
Wrong way: Granny bicyclist pedals through Cuba, into trouble
Miami Herald
Nov. 2, 2002
Tim Johnson
WASHINGTON - Joan Slote, a 74-year-old grandmother and avid cyclist, is in a big fix. She took a cycling tour of western Cuba with a Toronto-based company in early 2000, thinking it was legal. It wasn't.
The Treasury Department came after her for illegal travel to Cuba. The fine: $8,305.23.
It didn't stop there: Several weeks ago, the feds sent a letter saying they might start deducting the penalty from her $1,184 monthly Social Security check.
''This whole thing has just been a nightmare,'' said Slote, a former cycling gold medal winner at the Senior Olympics who lives in San Diego. She said she depends on her Social Security income to survive.
Slote's attorney, Tom Miller of Oakland, Calif., calls the case ''outrageous,'' and has appealed to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control for a hearing. But, like hundreds of other U.S. citizens who have received fines for illegal travel to Cuba, no hearing has been set.
Even strong advocates of the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba say they are puzzled why the Treasury Department pursues people, like the cycling granny, who appear to have inadvertently broken the travel ban while some high-profile celebrity trips to the island go unpunished.
''This is the wrong target. You should go after the people who are deliberately trying to violate the law,'' said Dennis K. Hays, executive vice president of the Cuban American National Foundation, an organization that staunchly supports the four-decade-old U.S. embargo. Hays said he wanted to know if boxer Mike Tyson was fined for a Cuba trip earlier this year.
`FULL ENFORCEMENT'
The Bush administration -- which vigorously defends the Cuba embargo against congressional efforts to ease or lift it -- carries out ''fair and full enforcement of the Cuba travel embargo program,'' said Treasury Department spokesman Rob Nichols.
''The American people need to know that if they go to Cuba illegally they run the risk of being fined. We will enforce the law of the land,'' Nichols said. Has Treasury fined Tyson? ''I can't comment on ongoing enforcement matters,'' he said.
Slote is far more active than most grandmothers. ''When people find out she's in her 70s, they go, like wow!'' said Amy Olsen, a 41-year-old cycling companion from San Luis Obispo, Calif., who accompanied Slote on the trip to Cuba and faces a stiff fine, too. ``She's still doing 50- and 60-mile days, and she's fast.''
Back in 1999, Slote said she studied the brochure from Worldwide Adventures of Toronto and took note that it said, ``U.S. law does not prohibit U.S. citizens from visiting Cuba, provided you are flying from Canada or Mexico and not directly from a U.S. port.'' ''Once I read that, it never occurred to me to question it,'' Slote said.
In fact, it was incorrect. Most U.S. citizens are banned from visiting Cuba, even when they leave from third countries. Among them are for scholars, journalists, humanitarian and religious workers, and Cuban Americans with relatives on the island. ''If I had known it was illegal, I would have never gone,'' Slote said.
About 176,000 U.S. citizens are believed to have traveled to Cuba last year, most of them with U.S. licenses, although 22,000 to 25,000 Americans went without authorization, said John Kavulich, head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
The Bush administration is imposing more fines. The Treasury Department sent 200 letters to suspected illegal travelers in 2000, then 698 letters last year, Nichols said. This year, through Sept. 30, the department has sent out 391 letters, he added.
When Slote and Olsen returned, U.S. Customs officials questioned them. 'Amy said, `Let's not tell them where we were.' I said, 'Oh no, Amy, we shouldn't lie. Be honest. It's not illegal,' '' Slote recalled.
The first certified letter from the Treasury Department demanding an explanation of her trip to Cuba arrived at Slote's residence in February, while she was on a bicycle tour of Italy. She later was distracted as she tended to her son, who was dying of brain cancer.
$1,000 OFFER
Other letters followed in July, August and September. Miller, her attorney, offered the Treasury Department $1,000 to drop the matter. He included a $100 check, which he said was to be cashed only if the government accepted. The check was cashed, but no one from Treasury wrote back, he said. The president of Worldwide Adventures, Lewie Gonsalves, said many Canadians don't agree with the U.S. embargo of Cuba: ``We think you're nuts.'' Slote is still pained by being caught on the wrong side of the law.
''I don't like to do anything illegal,'' she said.