GAO Re****t: US Agents Obsessed with Cuba Travelers Over Real Security Needs

WA****NGTON (Reuters) - U.S. customs inspectors may be too focused on
scrutinizing incoming travelers from Cuba, which may affect their
ability to detect other security threats, a new audit re****t said on
Wednesday.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of
the U.S. Congress, looked at the resources the White House used to
enforce the almost five-decades-old embargo on the island.

The re****t said government officials were inspecting all ex****ts for
Cuba leaving from the Everglades ****t in Florida, while it detected
weaknesses in the inspection from other ****ts of entry.

It also said 20 percent of passengers arriving from Cuba at the Miami
International Air****t were being carefully inspected, while only 3
percent of the other international flights received such close
attention.

"Secondary inspections of Cuba arrivals at the air****t may strain U.S.
Customs and Border Protection to carry out its mission of keeping
terrorists, criminals, and other inadmissible aliens from entering the
country," it said.

President George W. Bush's administration tightened trade and travel
restrictions to Cuba in 2004, trying to force a change of regime in the
island.

The re****t found that the U.S. Treasury's office that deals with
financial sanctions for terrorist or criminal groups, the Office of
Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), concentrated 61 percent of its cases on
Cuba, while sanctions to the island correspond to only one of the
existing 20 programs.

"After 2001, OFAC opened more investigations and imposed more penalties
for embargo violations, such as buying Cuban cigars, than for
violations of other sanctions such as those on Iran," the study said.

The study came as a request from Representatives Charles Rangel, a New
York Democrat, and Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, who are
critical of current U.S. policies relating Cuba.

The GAO re****t recommended that the Customs and Treasury departments
"re*****s" their priorities to "effectively" balance the embargo with
"protecting homeland security."

(Re****ting by Adriana Garcia, Editing by Leslie Adler)

(c) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved

                                 ***

The New York Times - Dec 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/world/americas/19cuba.html

Re****t Finds U.S. Agencies Distracted by Focus on Cuba

By MARC LACEY

Catching Americans who travel illegally to Cuba or who purchase cigars,
rum or other products from the island may be distracting some American
government agencies from higher-priority missions like fighting
terrorism and combating narcotics trafficking, a government audit to be
released Wednesday says.

The re****t, from the Government Accountability Office, says that
Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Department of
Homeland Security, conducts secondary inspections on 20 percent of
charter passengers arriving from Cuba at Miami International Air****t,
more than six times the inspection rate for other international
arrivals, even from countries considered ****pment points for narcotics.

That high rate of inspections and the numerous seizures of relatively
benign contraband have strained C.B.P.s capacity to carry out its
primary mission of keeping terrorists, criminals and inadmissible
aliens from entering the country at Miami International Air****t, says
the audit, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

The audit also called on the Treasury Department to scrutinize the
priorities of its Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces more
than 20 economic and trade sanctions programs, including those aimed at
freezing terrorists assets and restricting the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, but has long focused on Cuba.

Between 2000 and 2006, 61 percent of the agencys investigation and
penalty caseload involved Cuba embargo cases. Over that period, the
office opened 10,823 investigations into possible violations involving
Cuba and just 6,791 investigations on all other cases, the audit found.

Critics of the American embargo on Cuba seized on the re****t as
evidence that Wa****ngtons policy, which began in the Kennedy
administration and has grown more stringent ever since, was outdated.

This is not good policy, said Representative Charles B. Rangel,
Democrat of New York, who requested the re****t a year ago with
Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California. Its vindictive.
Its stupid. Its costly. And now we find out its a threat to our
national security.

The State Department, in a statement responding to the audit, said
enforcing the Trading With the Enemy Act, which prohibits Americans
from spending money in Cuba without authorization from Wa****ngton,
remained an im****tant tool to isolate the Cuban government. Loosening
the embargo, which the leading Democratic presidential candidates have
called for in the campaign, would provide increased revenue to the
successor dictator****p run by Ral Castro, and prolong its tight
control over all aspects of Cuban life, the department said.

The Bush administrations tightening of the Cuba sanctions in 2004
appears to have discouraged many Americans from visiting the island.
Manuel Marrero, Cubas tourism minister, acknowledged as much in a
recent interview in Havana, blaming the blockade, as Cubans call the
embargo, for scaring Americans away.

Sooner or later, there will be justice for the people of the United
States, and they will be allowed to visit and share with our people,
Mr. Marrero said.

Even with the number of American visitors down 37,000 in 2006, from
84,500 in 2003, according to the Cuban government, the United States
government devotes significant resources to pursuing those who still go.

Most passengers arriving in Miami from Cuba are American citizens or
residents who fly on charter flights and have American government
permission to visit relatives on the island. But they are forbidden to
bring Cuban products back to the United States. Still, searches
regularly turn up cigars, bottles of rum and pharmaceutical items in
the travelers luggage.

Most of the charter flights from Cuba arrive in Miami around midday,
with five flights landing between 11:30 and 11:40 a.m. and additional
flights in the afternoon.

As those passengers collect their luggage, most of the three secondary
inspection facilities and most of the customs personnel are focused on
them. As a result, the audit found, inspection of other arrivals is
sometimes delayed.

Most of the Americans who visit Cuba each year do not go directly from
Miami but use third countries like Canada, Mexico, Jamaica or the
Bahamas. Catching them is difficult but not impossible. In some cases,
American immigration officials simply observe them getting off flights
from Havana at foreign air****ts where the United States has a presence,
officials say.

Those who are caught violating the embargo are referred to the Treasury
Department. Officials there say that Cuba cases, most of which involve
unlicensed travel and the im****tation of Cuban cigars, consume a
relatively small ****tion of staff time and do not affect enforcement of
other sanctions programs.

The Treasury Department relies on warning letters and informal
settlements for lower fines than on formal administrative hearings. On
top of that, officials said they have recently begun focusing more of
their resources on other programs and less on Cuba enforcement.

The statistics bear that out. Between 2000 and 2005, there were 8,170
violations of the Cuba embargo, which accounted for more than 70
percent of the agencys total penalty cases.

In 2006, however, the number of cases pursued dropped significantly.
That year, only 290 people were fined for violating the embargo,
accounting for 29 percent of the agencys penalty cases.

Although the Treasury Department can *****s civil fines of up to
$55,000 for those who violate the embargo, most penalties are
considerably lower. Between 2000 and 2006, the average violation
brought a $992 fine.

In 2007, 13 people have been fined, most for under $1,000, for ordering
Cuban cigars over the Internet, an increasingly common violation. One
of the largest fines went to Travelocity, the Internet travel agency,
which had to pay $182,750 for booking nearly 1,500 flights to Cuba from
1998 to 2004.

James C. McKinley Jr. contributed re****ting.

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