A top Cuban-American lawmaker said nobody should be above the law when it comes to the travel embargo on the communist island nation, not even a “diva.”
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, was born in Havana and came to the U.S. when she was 7 years old. She’s a staunch opponent of the Castro regime.
This morning on CNN she countered news reports that said Jay-Z and Beyonce, big Obama donors, traveled to Cuba on an approved cultural exchange.
“It will take them a few days to respond to our congressional inquiry, which is kind of a farce in itself. It’s very easy to check what kind of license,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “But what this trip is about is that we’re saying that no one is above the law, even if you are the diva, Beyonce, and that’s wonderful that she’s famous and rich, and Jay-Z, everybody loves him, too, terrific. But no one’s above the law.”
“…And there are a lot of better places they could go where they’re not feeding a monstrous regime because every dollar that is spent there goes to the Castro regime so they can further repress the Cuban people.”
Ros-Lehtinen challenged the couple to meet with brave Cuban human-rights leaders like the Ladies in White. “In fact, there’s also a Cuban rapper who has been harassed for the lyrics and for the songs that he sings,” she said.
“Liberties that we enjoy here, but that they are not celebrated in Cuba in the least so I wish that they would have a little more common sense and understanding and solidarity with the suffering of the Cuban people, and they ate at great places and stayed at beautiful hotels, none of which the Cuban people are allowed to eat or stay.”
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