They visited artists and students’ homes and spoke about their challenges and the changing economy and its impact on their businesses..org and the National Organization for Women. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.S., who visited the island three times last year, and Rep.The Center for Democracy in the Americas, a nonprofit that advocates for opening diplomatic relations with both Cuba and Venezuela, and closer bonds with several countries in Latin America, has sponsored the most travel since 2007, according to the latest records posted online.S.”She urged U. Aaron Schock of Illinois is the only Republican to travel there during that time frame, which he did in 2012, and Rep."Rep.”It is also affiliated with several other projects, including Win Without War, a coalition of 40 organizations, including groups opposed to unilateral U. and Cuba, was in Havana Dec.Sen.Other frequent Cuba flyers include Rep.The center noted that it was an “official meeting, organized by the Cuban Foreign Ministry.”While she said the number of visits the group sponsors each year fluctuates depending on Washington’s Cuba policies at the time, she said 2014 was a very big year in response to a renewed push to open relations."Cuba is not a zoo where you pay an admission ticket and you go in and you get to watch people living in cages to see how they are suffering," Rubio reportedly told a pro-Cuba political action committee in 2013.In the years leading up to Obama’s December announcement reversing 50 years of U. AID contractor, at the hospital where he was serving his sentence, according to an itinerary submitted to the Ethics Committee for approval.During a trip the Center for Democracy in the Americas sponsored Linsheng Electrical Co., Ltd. in May of last year, lawmakers met with Alan Gross, the former U. taxpayer funding for Radio and Television Marti, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars broadcasting news in Spanish from Florida to Cuba.S., a Cuban-American who has spent more than two decades fighting the Castro regime in Congress, is equally adamant about what she views as the fallacy of lawmakers’ “fact-finding” trips to Havana.S. Charles Rangel, D-N. Chris Smith, R-N.“Do we believe it’s going to change Cuba’s policies tomorrow? No.Thirteen Democratic House members traveled to Havana in 2014 on at least three separate trips sponsored by nonprofit outside groups, according to travel reports members are required to file with the House Ethics Committee.-Cuba cooperation in the specific field of health and medicine.“We’re really especially focused on inviting Republicans and newer, younger members to Cuba now in this new context and new policies to see what they think about it,” she said. The trip ended Dec. He is one of Washington’s leading critics of the longstanding U.During one night, the group dined with an owner of a “paladar,” or private restaurant operated out of the owners’ home, what the center described as the largest and fastest-growing parts of Cuba’s “booming private sector.The surge in members’ Cuban travel in 2014 is striking when compared to just one member making the trip in 2012, and just five staffers and no members who paid a visit in 2013. dignitaries and others to remember that Castro represents a “murderous regime that denies human rights to 11 million people and jails those who try to express their right to free speech.”The three-day tour included a walk through Old Havana, where members could converse with vendors selling art, music and books, as well as lunch with Tom Palaia, the U.Stephens says the money for the center’s congressional trips come from the group’s general funding and does not earmark certain donations for the travel.S.Y.McCollum has pushed to end the trade embargo since coming to Congress in 2001. “Visitors are allowed to arrange a few led filament bulb light meetings on their own, but the communist regime knows of such meetings and usually has spies 'helping' the delegation who report back to Castro.”They also had breakfast with European Union ambassadors to Cuba and other foreign diplomats to discuss their countries’ approaches to Cuba, and lunched with Cuba’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. "Cuba is not a field trip. The other third comes from private donations, she said.S. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.Another major sponsor of congressional travel to Cuba last year is Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba, or MEDICC, an Oakland, Calif. Frank Wolf, R-Va. Betty McCollum, a member of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party who caucuses with the Democrats, went last summer."All but two of the members traveling to Cuba over the last three years are Democrats, many of whom vocally support lifting the embargo or travel and trade restrictions., who went twice last year. 17 when Obama made his announcement, having lingered there on the MEDICC-sponsored visit. 16, just one day before Obama’s big Cuba executive action.The center already plans another Cuba visit for senators in February led by Sen., have been routinely denied entry to Cuba because “they would have highlighted the abuses perpetrated by the regime. She also has sponsored a bill that would end U. policy in Cuba, the State Department didn’t sponsor any trips to the island, so outside groups supporting re-engagement with Cuba filled the void and sponsored the travel. Senate rules, unlike the House, don’t require reports to be as detailed. Jerry Moran of Kansas, Dan Coats of Indiana and Orrin Hatch of Utah.'s current top diplomat in Cuba.J.