"Did Beyoncé, Jay-Z make an illegal trip to Cuba?" scream the headlines ricocheting around the web the past 24 hours, as the media trips over itself to explain just how it was that two of the world's most famous musicians took an anniversary trip to the island on which the U.S. Department of the Treasury has maintained an embargo for more than half a century. If it's illegal to go to Cuba, the common thinking goes, how'd the superstars get away with it?
Easy: It's not actually illegal to visit Cuba_—if you have the proper paperwork_.
In January 2011, the Obama administration announced that the Treasury Department should resume issuing travel licenses that allow "educational exchanges not involving academic study…under the auspices of an organization that sponsors and organizes people-to-people programs." Since then, a number of travel groups have taken legal trips to the island. One such company is Insight Cuba, whose president, Tom Popper, has sending Americans to Havana and beyond since 2000.
"My understanding is they received a people-to-people license, which means they traveled legally just like tens of thousands of Americans have in the last few years," Popper says, adding that there are significant differences between these sorts of well-regulated, culturally focused trips and an ordinary vacation. The lengthy application for a license that travel companies submit to the Treasury Department, Popper says, "needs to demonstrate there's going to be meaningful interaction between the traveler and the Cuban people."
During last year's Presidential campaign, Senator Marco Rubio repeatedly criticized the people-to-people program, saying tour operators were abusing the educational angle to provide "nothing more than tourism" to the island. Rubio's influence on the issue as a Cuban-American, a senator from Florida, and as a potential vice-presidential candidate raised some serious questions about the future of travel to Cuba—and precipitated a perhaps-coincidental delay in license renewal by the Treasury. In the end, though, fresh licenses were eventually issued and companies were able to resume trips late last year.
Which brings us back to Jay and Bey. The latest unnamed sources in the press claim the couple were on a fully licensed trip; The New York Times reports that Academic Arrangements Abroad planned the three-day jaunt. That travel provider was one of the many hit by the slow-down in license renewals in 2012, as reported at the time by the Detroit Free-Press. If it's true they helped plan this trip, during which the artists visited a children's theater company, an art institute, and a contemporary dance troupe, Academic Arrangements Abroad seems to be providing exactly the sort of cultural exchange opportunities that people-to-people is intended to promote.
There's no doubt the trips are popular, even if they're still not well-known: Last year the winner of our Dream Trip Photo Contest won with a great image of Havana before sunrise, taken on a legal journey to the island.
"Right now, Cuba is the only country that Americans are restricted to travel to," Popper says. "So few people know about this thing called people-to-people that allows legal opportunities [for travel]. Fifty years of telling people it's illegal…the nuances are what get people confused."