Steve Lynch: “The starting point for this debate this evening should be that Americans have a constitutional right to travel, and…”

“The starting point for this debate this evening should be that Americans have a constitutional right to travel, and history shows us that the Framers of the Constitution and the signers to the Declaration of Independence thought it was an inalienable right and one that came from natural law and that governments were given a duty to protect. I have heard three arguments from the opponents of lifting this travel ban. The first is that because we disagree with the policies of Castro that we should prevent our citizens from traveling to Cuba; yet, if we look across the globe, there are many, many regimes that we disagree with on policy reasons: China, for one, Iran for another; but on a daily basis, our citizens are allowed to travel there. So that is not one that holds up. Secondly, we have heard that history precludes it, as in the Bay of Pigs, I had heard that referred to earlier. Well, we just debated earlier this evening a bill that would establish trade with Vietnam, our citizens are allowed to go there. And what about Vietnam? We lost 48,000 American boys in a war with that country, and yet we allow our citizens to go there. So it is not history that precludes it.”