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Yuyi said:
It is inhuman that on stupid political basis Cubans are banned to visit relatives in the island. We love these people! They grow us up! Parents, sons, brothers and sisters. It is very painful for any Cuban not to be able to visit their close relatives period.
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It's funny when you say this. I see no any Cuban complaining about having "inhuman treatment" when United States hands them a green card RIGHT AWAY once any Cuban puts his/her feet on US soil....As a matter of fact, US made this policy ONLY for Cubans even though there are people who come over here from other communist or lawless countries like from China, Russia, Haiti, and many more. This SPECIAL not-so-called "inhuman treatment" is ONLY for Cubans, and you are still blaming US govt for your so-called "iinhuman tratement"???

Don't you know WHY US govt. gives a green card RIGHT AWAY to Cubans? Because most Cubans face persecution if they return back to Cuba. And now going back to Cuba, a person is saying that s/he doesn't care about his/her persecution over there, or he never have had that fear of persecution...which means his right to obtain the green card just being a Cuban becomes questionable. It's same to the fact that asylum seekers from around the world asking aslyum from US govt. on the ground of possible persecution if they are sent back to their home country, but once these people get their green card, they right away want to visit their home country, the country they claimed will perscute them...funny, isn't it?

Whatever embargo/restrictions US govt. has on Cuba, including restrictions on traveling is actually penalizing Cuban govt. so that Cuban govt. could reconsider following human rights and world's laws to its citizens. United States will do the same with Iran to make it to obey the world's wish on its nuclear policy. Sometimes these restrictions are not good, but govt. doesn't have any choice just to restrict certain things to penalize these troubled countries. By the way, you could have asked for the permission to travel to Cuba which could be granted within a few hours in emergency situation...Also, when people break a law knowing well that they are breaking a law then they should be ready to face the consequences as well than hoping for the both world...

People cannot have their cake and eat it too...when it's convient to them...for example, you wanted to visit Cuba anyway despite of knowing that it's illegal, but now wanted to obtain citizenship as well just because your interest is involved here...So, you want to keep both cards in your favor....First breaking the law in the name of family emergency, and then hoping to become a US citizen by not disclosing this matter to the officer so that you could become a US citizen...Every time...it's just you...you...you...
 
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Johnny Cash,

Thanks for sharing! You have been very kind! But my mother thought me if you are not going to say something nice, then you rather not say anything at all.

I can almost agree with your reasoning if it wouldn't be so harsh.

You are free to post whatever you wish, but before expressing and sharing your hate, revise your comments; it is not nice and most certainly not appreciated.

Have a great day Sir....
 
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Robbing a bank, rapping, mudering, breaking laws for speeding and etc...are mentioned to clear up the point/fact that law is law, and nothing could justify breaking it up. Period. If there is any room to bend any law such as for "emergency", "desperation", "humantarian" then such requests be made to lawmakers than justifying breaking it up. As a matter of fact, lawmakers have made many exceptions in laws to bend for different reasons, like granting a green card to Cubans right away once Cubans put feet on US soil, allowing filing waiver to forgive all kind of different immigation violations, etc.

My whole point in my earlier posts is- law is law, nothing should justify breaking of it. For example, an immigrant will be barred for 10 yrs if s/he departs the US, even on an approved Advance Parole, if s/he has overstayed for one year or more, regardless of the fact if s/he has US born chidren and US citizen spouse. Even though this immigrant would say that s/he traveled out of the US by taking advance permission from US govt. and because of the reason that his/her parents were seriously sick, yet still immigration officer must deny his/her green card application at the time of interviewing him/her, and would ask him/her to file a waiver application in order to get his/her green card applicaton approved. And, approval on a waiver application is not that easy given the fact that there must be compelling reasons. Justing marrying to a US citizen and having US born children wouldn't matter much at that point.

Having said all these, I just wanted to know that law is law...without any distinction...only judges could determine what sentence should be proper given the nature/serverity of the crime/reasoning of breaking the law...
 
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Yuyi,

First of all, good luck with whatever you decide to do. I understand your complicated situation, but I don't have much else to add to what other people have said.

I am posting mostly because of the philosophical debate about the law having to be followed blindly all the time and with no excuses. What is a law, what is the purpose of having laws in a society? One explanation is to have order and predictability, protections for the weakest, and other worthy purposes. However, they can also be used to force the beliefs or points of view of part of the society on another part of society. For example the segregation laws in the U.S., anti-abortion, anti foreign language legislations. Every country has a bunch of laws that make sense, but also a certain proportion of racist, discriminatory, random laws. Should we selectively respect the law? In any given day a lot of people do this, they go about their day smoking pot or sniffing cocaine, or speeding, or shoplifting. They calculate their own risk equation and make a decision on how comfortable they are about breaking the law. Some religious figures advocate that shoplifting from large chain stores is not a "sin", but a badly needed reallocation of resources. A bank robber in Spain declares himself not a robber and a murderer, but as an expropriator of banks. At all times there is a tension between governments and their citizens, a dialectic of sorts, each one testing each others limits. That's the only way of bringing change. If everyone in a society would respect and follow every law there will never be worthy change. If it hadn't been for Rosa Parks refusing to follow the law we might still have segregation. We would still have Ceaucescu in Romania, Jarruzelski in Poland, the apartheid in South Africa. Sometimes some laws have to be broken in order to bring about change. Bringing change by appealing to legislators is still the preferred way to bring change, but I also have a lot of respect for all the civil rights leaders who risked limb and life to bring more rights to citizens. If there were one million Yuyis peacefully going back to Cuba that could probably do better to solve the impasse between the U.S. and Cuba than the decades long embargo. Likewise for South and North Korea and any other close neighbor that because of conflict have to see families separated for longs period of time.

Bottom line:
1. Follow the law
2. If law is unfair, plead with legislators to change the law
3. If 2 fails, look deeply inside your mind/soul and find out what the ethical thing to do is.
4. We are, on average, less than 100 years on this earth. Make the stay worthwhile. Educate yourself, fight injustice, and enjoy life.
 
Yuyi said:
Johnny Cash,

But my mother thought me if you are not going to say something nice, then you rather not say anything at all.
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Although I might agree with your mom, yet still I have not been hanging around to many websites for so many years to tell only NICE things or to tell ONLY what people want to hear out....Rather, I'm here to tell how things are....right or wrong....And my mother has always taught me to stand up for what I believe in and for the righteous. That being said, I always stand up for my conviction...no matter how it is taken by someone...I'm certainly not here to offend anyone...at least deliberately. And of course, I am not here to put a show of ganging together, or to make people happy, or being biased; instead I'm here to tell about things how they are...at least in my opinion....
 
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This whole question about travel to Cuba seems to fall under the same dilemma of whether to mention traffic tickets or not. Do people who choose not to disclose their traffic tickets under $500 also break the law and are thereby lying to obtain a benefit?
In my mind, USCIS should be more concerned about if you were outside the country too long as a LPR, not what countries you may have visited. Let the US government focus on US citizens who violate the travel ban instead.
 
I truly thank you all for your time to post your thoughts and comments. Even Johnny's harsh opinion was very appreciated. I can clearly see his point of view.

Hopefully everything will be ok and nothing will happen in the interview.

God bless you all guys!
 
Yuyi,

I know family issues can on many occasion make us not do the right thing since our thoughts are not very stable when we deal with emergencies far away from home. I think the key message from this post is that honesty is the best policy. From what I remember I had to bring my passport with me for the Naturalization interview and they looked into the pages and asked me questions. Now you did mention that CUBA didn't stamp your passport but if I were you, I'd be honest.

Tell them about your situation and with some compassion they will understand. Fact is ignorance of the law is not an excuse but we are human and make mistakes. Even if the IO doesn't ask you if you visited CUBA tell him. Honesty goes a long way. There are exception to most rules and penalizing you for putting family first is not something USCIS generally does. I'm speaking of many cases that I have seen over the years.

Hope that helps and God Bless.

PS: You kept your cool and you were very polite despite the harsh posts on here. I commend you for that.
 
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camp12 said:
another example. i'm in the middle of katrina...i'm on a remote part where i haven't seen anyone for days. there's a store next to me- i break in and take water to drink, and some food to eat...i'd bet all the money i have in my portfolio that i wouldn't get in trouble even though i committed crimes (more than one).....
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While I fully support your views on disclosing traffic tickets, I must disagree with this. Breaking into a store to get something to eat and drink would constitute looting, which is considered a serious criminal offense, especially during a state of emergency. However, if you were to leave money on the counter, I'm not so sure it would be considered looting at that point. You could still be arrested for breaking and entering, though.

However, I doubt that anyone would be enforcing those laws, as the emergency personnel would have their hands full with more important things.
 
niceuser said:
travel to cuba is restricted - the other reasons besides cuba being a communist state - cuban misslie crisis of 1961 that led to imposition of sanctions on cuba? also that cuba is only 90 miles from us?
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I know of no other country than the US that has imposed restrictions on its citizens to travel and spend money freely to Cuba. That's a good indication why the rest of the world does not agree with the current US embargo.
Meanwhile, the US allows open travel and trade with China..a communist country with human right violations left and right. It's these kinds of contradictory polices that has led to the US loosing much of its credibility as a world leader over the years.
 
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camp12 said:
another example. i'm in the middle of katrina...i'm on a remote part where i haven't seen anyone for days. there's a store next to me- i break in and take water to drink, and some food to eat...i'd bet all the money i have in my portfolio that i wouldn't get in trouble even though i committed crimes (more than one).....
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Many were arrested and locked up for doing just that. Although so many of the people were looting that the cops couldn't catch most of them. And if the store owner saw you, they'd probably bust a cap in your a$$ and I'd support their decision to do that. Don't equate looting with jaywalking or speeding.
 
camp12 said:
now i may be mistaken, but i could've swore that technically it's not illegal to visit cuba, it is however illegal to spend any money there...

http://www.ibike.org/cuba/ofac/cuba-travelto.htm
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It was not illegal to travel to Cuba if you could proof you did not spend any money; however, OFAC has found ways to punish US citizen or residents by imposing fines from $7500 up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison. Before, this category was called “Fully Hosted Trip”; if you could proof that someone not resident of Cuba hosted your expenses you would not be in violation of the law. This category was removed a while ago; however, in spite of these cucu laws, there are no records that US court has enforced any of these fines or sanctions since it is against the constitution of the United Estate to prohibit any American citizen from visiting any part of the world, most cases have settled for less money in order to avoid prosecution.

These restrictions are executive laws passed by the president and we all know it can change. This has become a major issue for Cuban-Americans that have their family in Cuba and hopefully it will change one day; although, we all want to have a free Cuba, restrictions of this kind will put us far from freedom. Cuban people instead are the ones that suffer the consequences.

Thank you all for your participation on this Threat.
 
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Once again, it's easy to stand atop a soapbox and preach about the the morals of traveling to Cuba when it does not affect you.
 
niceuser said:
that is good enough reason for US to ban travel to cuba and us embargo.
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Actually, the reason for the embargo and the travel ban is the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, which was a big blunder early on in JFK's presidential career.
 
I never advocated for someone to lie on their application about travel. What I did say was that I don't plan to openly mention or disclose that I went to Cuba. If the IO specifically asks if I went (which I doubt he/she would have a reason to since the record of travel is via Canada), then of course yes I would mention it.
Niceuser (or is it geetha1), you're totally missing the the point I was trying to make in order to boost your own moral ego and use this thread for one of your countless tirades. Give it a rest.
 
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niceuser said:
Not disclosing is breaking the law. Hopefully IO has upto date information about all your trips outside US. Then you will be caught red handed and then you can start to moralize about US laws all you can but it won't help. law looks at facts and proof and not emotions.
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So in your mind not disclosing traffic citations is also breaking the law? With that logic half the users on this board should not be naturalized. USCIS has better things to worry about than unreported trips to Cuba or undisclosed speeding tickets when it comes to judging an applicants moral character.
 
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