Speaking of remittances

The U.S. government’s hostile laws against Cuba make it hard to send money there even if you have some.

My daughter’s sister in Havana has her “quince” (15th birthday celebration) coming up and we decided to help out. At my local Western Union, I filled out one form and then was given another, a Cuba Remittance Affidavit from the Treasury Department. The wording of the form is very telling. Even if Obama changes it, this is what he is tweaking.

First, the total amount allowed is $300 per payee’s household in a 3-month period. This stipulation is repeated three times in a paragraph about Family Household Remittance. Higher sums are allowed only if you check off Emigration [to the U.S.].

The Treasury Department limits who is a family member. You must certify that “no member of the payee’s household is a prohibited official of the Government of Cuba or a prohibited member of the Cuban Communist Party.”

While I could send to “my spouse’s child,” I assumed that since she is a minor I should send it to her mother. Upon reading my affidavit, the Western Union worker was concerned that “mother of spouse’s child” wouldn’t work. She told me they will hold the money for the slightest thing, and your family will not be able to get it, at least not until a big pile of new paperwork is done. On her advice I called Western Union and was informed that in Cuba, a person under 18 who shows ID can receive remittances.

While waiting, I read the footnote on the affidavit. “Prohibited officials” include anyone with a leadership position in any ministry or state agency, the council of State, the Committees for Defense of the Revolution, Confederation of Labor of Cuba (CTC) and its component unions; also any member or employee of the National Assembly of People’s Power [elected parliamentary body]; employees of the Ministry of the Interior or Ministry of Defense; any level editors of the state-run media; and members and employees of the Cuban Supreme Court.

Just one of these categories, the Ministry of the Interior, includes numerous job titles from police to immigration clerks to those who inform their neighbors about recycling laws. A huge housing development in Habana del Este houses mostly MININT workers—none of whom, I now see, could legally get money wired from U.S. relatives.

Reading further, “Prohibited members of the Cuban Communist Party” includes members of the Politburo, the Central Committee, and so on down to secretaries of the provincial Party central committees. At times I have heard Cubans say that the leadership sacrifices more than the masses, and now I understand one aspect of that statement.

Back at the window with a new affidavit naming my stepdaughter, we tried again. When the worker had me proofread her typing, I noticed a capital C where there should have been a G. She called to reverse the payment she had just entered, and rewrote a third form herself. She feared that my money could end up just sitting there due to a one-letter mismatch.

This process took so long that I read a few chapters in a book, while a man swept the floor. Recalling that her co-worker is Cuban, the agent joked with him that she might send him back along with the money. He responded seriously, “The way things are going, I would be ‘más tranquilo’ (calmer) there than here.” For example, he mentioned, in Cuba health care is free and people are not kicked out of their jobs.