U.S. Asks Cuba To Resume Immigration Talks

In a new overture to Cuba, the Obama administration asked the island's communist government on Friday to resume talks on legal immigration of Cubans to the United States suspended by former President George W. Bush.

The State Department said it had proposed that the discussions, which were halted after the last meeting in 2003, be restarted to "reaffirm both sides' commitment to safe, legal and orderly migration, to review trends in illegal Cuban migration to the United States and to improve operational relations with Cuba on migration issues."

The twice-yearly talks - unilaterally cut off by Bush - are stipulated in the migration accord that ended the 1994 rafters' crisis during which tens of thousands of Cubans fleeing economic crisis at home took to the seas in flimsy crafts hoping to reach the Florida shores, reports CBS News' Portia Siegelbaum. The U.S. offer to resume migration talks with Cuba is the latest step taken by the Obama Administration to roll back bilateral relations to where they were Bush tightened policies intended to encourage regime change on the island.

President Barack Obama "wants to ensure that we are doing all we can to support the Cuban people in fulfilling their desire to live in freedom," said Darla Jordan, a department spokeswoman. "He will continue to make policy decisions accordingly."

The move follows Mr. Obama's decision in April to rescind restrictions on travel to Cuba by Americans with family there and on the amount of money they can send to their relatives on the island. In 2004 the Bush White House had restricted to just one visit every three years to see immediate family members - aunts, uncles and cousins were excluded from this category, reports Siegelbaum.

It also comes ahead of a high-level meeting early next month of the Organization of American States, where Cuba's possible re-entry into the regional bloc will be discussed. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will attend the June 2 meeting in Honduras.

Clinton, however, told lawmakers this week that the U.S. would not support Cuba's membership in the organization until and unless President Raul Castro's regime makes democratic reforms and releases political prisoners.

She and Obama have also said that broader engagement with Cuba, including the possible lifting of the U.S. embargo on the island, is dependent on such steps.

There was no immediate reaction from the Cuban government on Friday, but communist officials were angered when the Bush administration decided to scuttle the talks on grounds they were not crucial for monitoring agreements aimed at preventing a mass exodus from the island.

In Miami on Friday, the influential Cuban American National Foundation welcomed the news, saying resumed migration talks could be "an opportunity to resolve issues of United States national interest."

The twice-yearly meetings in alternating countries had been the highest level contacts between the two countries, which have no diplomatic relations.

The suspension of the talks occurred during an especially prickly period during which then-president Fidel Castro publicly criticized James Cason, at the time head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, as a "bully" and Washington condemned Havana for a crackdown that rounded up 75 dissidents and sentenced them to long prison terms.

The talks were created so the countries could track adherence to 1994 and 1995 accords designed to promote legal, orderly migration between the two countries. The aim was to avoid a repeat of the summer of 1994, when tens of thousands of Cubans took to the sea in flimsy boats.