#CubaNow Activist Group Launches Campaign Calling For Obama To Lift Embargo

#CubaNow, an advocacy group made up of young Cuban-American activists and based in Miami and Washington, kicked off a campaign calling for President Barack Obama to lift the United States’ longstanding embargo of Cuba in a series of advertisements on the D.C. metro this week. “Mr. President, stop waiting,” reads one of the ads, which features images of the president and renowned Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez. “Help independent entrepreneurs in Cuba.” Obama has said in the past that the embargo “has not worked the way we wanted it to” but has not pushed for it to be lifted, which would require Congressional approval.

Ric Herrero, the group’s director, told Telemundo in an interview this week that the activists believe the president could take further executive action on the issue. Its requests include the expansion of travel licenses to Cuba for all Americans, not just Cuban-Americans, and for those without family on the island to be able to send an unlimited amount of money to entrepreneurs there. “The ads emphasize the changes that there have been in Cuba, and obviously our policy for 52 years toward Cuba hasn’t worked,” Herrero told El Diario de las Americas. He added, “It’s time to introduce alternative measures to keep the pressure on Cuba on human rights while helping Cubans who are creating economic and social rights for themselves.”

Since Obama entered office in 2008, he has taken a series of relatively small steps to roll back restrictions imposed by the Bush administration. In 2009, it removed all restrictions on travel and remittances sent to the island by Cuban-Americans. In 2011, it loosened travel restrictions on American students and religious and cultural groups too, and made it legal for American citizens to send as much as $2,000 per year. But that same year, he renewed the now-52-year-old embargo.