If there were any doubts that these are desperate times for anti-Castro hard-liners, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida has put them to rest.

The ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ros-Lehtinen would have us believe that lifting the 1961 ban on travel to Cuba would somehow pose a major threat to U.S. national security. How? By making Cuba a haven for criminals and enabling the Castro regime to turn tourists into traitors.

She offered two examples at a Nov. 18 briefing: American fugitive Joanne Chesimard, who escaped to Cuba more than 20 years ago after being convicted of murdering a New Jersey state trooper; and Ana Belen Montes, who was convicted of spying for Cuba in 2002.

In an attempt to boost her argument, the congresswoman neglects to mention that Cuban-Americans can already travel to the island whenever they please, and that any American is allowed to travel to North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan – anywhere in the world – except Cuba.

It is no wonder that most Americans have grown weary of these far-fetched arguments and of the hard line on Cuba in general. According to a survey released by WorldPublicOpinion.org in April, 70 percent of Americans support travel to Cuba and 69 percent favor re-establishing diplomatic relations. Even more telling, 59 percent of Cuban-Americans polled by Bendixen & Associates in September favored lifting the travel ban – a 13 percent increase since 2002.

In 2003, legislation intended to lift the ban passed in both the Republican-controlled House and Senate. But before President Bush could make good on his promise to veto the bill – and thereby shore up Cuban-American votes in Florida – House Majority Leader Tom DeLay killed the provision behind closed doors.

President Obama owes much less to anti-Castro hard-liners than any of his predecessors in recent decades, and he has already made some small gestures to soften U.S.-Cuba policy. According to Dan Erikson, a Cuba expert at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank and author of "The Cuba Wars," Obama would actually "breathe a sigh of relief" if the latest legislation, the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, or something similar were approved. It would allow Obama to demonstrate further progress on his pledge to "move U.S.-Cuban relations in a new direction," while letting Congress take on the fight.

Erickson believes the bill will likely pass in the House but may get stuck in the Senate. The largest obstacle there is Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime supporter of the ban. According to a new report by Public Campaign, a nonprofit organization that advocates campaign finance reform, Menendez has raised close to $150,000 this year from anti-Castro hard-liners for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which he chairs.

The report found that in the last few years anti-Castro hard-liners have increasingly used large political contributions as "the last tool in their arsenal" to keep current U.S.-Cuba policy intact. While they may have effectively swung the votes of a handful of elected officials over the years, their dollars can only stem the changing tide of public opinion – and the force of logic – for so long.

Consider Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs: Despite having received $10,000 in contributions from supporters of the embargo, the congressman favors lifting the travel ban.

In a Nov. 17 op-ed in The Miami Herald, Berman and Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argued that repealing the ban would be a welcome development in the protracted and frustratingly unsuccessful effort to bring democracy to Cuba. U.S. travelers would serve as ambassadors for democratic values, they wrote, and their dollars "could aid the underground economy and the small self-employed sector permitted by the state, strengthening an important foundation of independence from Cuba’s authoritarian system."

But that kind of thinking is probably a little wishful, too. Travel is not some magic bullet for promoting democracy. U.S. tourism hasn’t brought democracy to China, nor has European tourism brought it to Cuba. Still, it is high time we eliminate this unjustified exception to Americans’ freedom to travel.

Travel – freedom of movement – is the right of all citizens in a democracy. If the U.S. upheld that principle, perhaps it could regain the moral high ground in this debate and shift the focus back to the unreasonable restrictions imposed by the Castro regime.

As Rep. William Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts and co-sponsor of the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, said in an interview, "If we want to talk about these rights, we have to live them."