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This happened after Scott accused Nelson of appeasing the Castro regime for backing President Obama's efforts to normalize his communist-led relationship with the Island to only 90 miles off the coast of the United States.
"Indeed, we have a problem in this hemisphere, not only with Maduro and Chavez before him, but also with Cuba and Nicaragua.And indeed, they have seen my position of anti-Castro for so long." This time, when I asked to go to Cuba to see the imprisoned compatriot who had been there for four years, they did not let me in, because I was not there. have been so hard, "said Nelson.
Later, he insisted on the point by declaring: "The Cuban government will not let me come to Cuba because I have been so vigorously anti-Castroist for years and years".
It was the first time that CNN discovered that Nelson was prevented from traveling to the island.
According to Nelson's spokesman, Ryan Brown, the Senator was denied a visa in 2014 when Alan Gross's wife asked her to visit her husband, imprisoned by the Castro regime. Gross, a State Department subcontractor imprisoned by the Cuban government for smuggling prohibited telecommunications equipment to the island, confirmed CNN Nelson's account of what had happened. spent while incarcerated.
"Yes, it tells me something, I understand that the Cuban government refused to issue a visa to Senator Nelson," Gross said. "He seems to have come a long way in regard to Cuba and I think he represents the majority of his constituents' interests vis-à-vis Cuba."
Nelson criticized Cuban ex-presidents Fidel and Raul Castro, but his rancor was not enough to lead to a public reprimand from the Cuban government, at least as CNN could not find. Cuban authorities have regularly attacked other US politicians critical of the regime, such as Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio and New Jersey Democrat Senator Bob Menendez, among others. Recently, they have even addressed criticism to Scott, but nothing says that Nelson has provoked the Cuban government's over-40 years of public service.
As demographics evolve in the Sunshine State, winning the support of the Cuban-American vote resolutely anti-Castroist has decided the fate of many political campaigns in this country over the years.
The apparent negation of the Cuban government against Nelson is striking in that Gross has received several visits from US officials. When he left Cuba as part of a prisoner exchange in 2014, Gross was accompanied home by Senators Patrick Leahy, Jeff Flake and Chris Van Hollen.
The Cuban government in Havana and its embassy in Washington did not respond to CNN's repeated requests for comments. It is likely that if American politicians were denied entry into the country, they would not confirm it. In the past, the government has said it welcomes all US officials on the island to show them the "Cuban reality" and advocate for the lifting of US economic sanctions imposed on the island.
In September, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), chairman of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, visited the island and met with Cuban officials, including Miguel Diaz-Canel, who replaced Raul Castro as Cuban President in April.
During the debate, Nelson indicated that the ban against him could still be in effect.
Meanwhile, Gross said that he did not know the specific reasons why Nelson's visa could have been refused. "In fact, I spoke to his Senate office in Washington while I was detained.I would not like to guess why he was denied a visa, but I really did appreciated his efforts to visit me, "he said. "I'm not a single voter, but if I lived in Florida, Bill Nelson would have my vote, the alternative would be a disaster."
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