SANTA BARBARA, CA: President Reagan has moved tighten the 26-year old US. Economic embargo against Cuba and halt what the State Department called Cuban trade inhuman beings.
The actions were announced as Reagan vacationed at his California ranch near this Pacific sea Side resort.
He said in a statement most Cuban immigrants would be denied entry to the United States because of President Fidel Castro’s suspension of a December, 1984 immigration agreement between the two countries.
Under the agreement, suspended by Castro six months after it was signed, the United States pledged to issue entry visas to up to 20,000 Cuban immigrants a year.
Cuba promised in return to take back thousands of criminals and mentally ill people dumped on the United States in 1980 during the 90-called Mariel boatlift.
After Cuba’s May 20, 1985, announcement that it would no longer honor the agreement, U.S. diplomats in Havana stopped issuing U.S. entry visas.
Administration officials said – Reagan’s order would bar Cuban immigrants from entering the United States through third countries. They said the Castro government ‘was encouraging such migration and sometimes charged would-be émigrés and their families in excess of 30,000 thousand dollars to leave Cuba.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 29, 1986
