Raul Castros's daughter is Now "Official"

capitolhillcubans

At San Francisco General Hospital in San Francisco, Calif./ Lacy Atkins

Earlier this year, the State Department granted a visa to Cuban dictator Raul Castro's daughter, Mariela, to deliver a host of anti-U.S. policy speeches in San Francisco and New York City.

In doing so, we argued at the time, the State Department was making an exemption for the dictator's daughter from Presidential Proclamation 5377, which denies visas to Cuban nationals affiliated with that country's totalitarian regime.

Moreover, that it threw a bucket of cold water on President Obama's Presidential Proclamation 8697 of August 2011, which sought to "close the gap" in granting visas to foreign nationals affiliated with human rights violators -- and singling-out "prolonged arbitrary detentions" as a main violation.

Mariela's father, is one of the world's worst offenders of such detentions.

Yet, some artfully argued that Mariela was not "officially" part of the Cuban government and, as such, not subject to the visa ban.

Today, Mariela's name was included in her father's list of appointees to his National Assembly.

Thus, she is now "official" and subject to the visa ban.