President Obama arrived in Cuba on Sunday afternoon, becoming the first president since 1928 to visit the country after ending more than a half century of adversarial relations between the neighboring countries.
Obama and his family emerged from Air Force One in Havana at around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
Some key members of Congress, like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the longest serving member of the upper chamber, were also onboard, according to a White House pool report. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., made the group bipartisan.
The wife and daughter of the late baseball player Jackie Robinson also joined the Obamas on Air Force One for the flight to the baseball loving island, according to a White House pool report.
The president was greeted by several officials upon his arrival in Cuba, including Bruno Rodriguez, the Cuban minister of foreign affairs, and Jose Ramon Cabanas Rodriguez, the Cuban ambassador to the United States.
The two-and-a-half-day visit will include meetings with Cuban President Raul Castro, as well as with U.S. and Cuban businesses, the Associated Press reported. Obama will also attend a baseball game between the national team of Cuba and the Tampa Bay Rays.
The visit is a key piece of Obama’s effort to improve upon the relationship between the two countries since diplomatic relations were restored in December 2014. The Cuban embassy in D.C. opened last summer.
While there have been steps forward in relations between the two countries, U.S. concerns remain about Cuba’s single-party political system and limits on freedom of speech.
Republicans have criticized the president’s visit to Cuba since these issues have not yet been addressed.
Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to the president earlier this month encouraging him to meet with human rights activists during the trip, not just officials selected by the government.
“Meeting with these high-level, internationally acclaimed dissidents — and not government-picked ‘activists’ — will assure the Cuban people that America has not forgotten them,” Royce wrote. “Frankly, these meetings should have been solidified well before the White House announced your upcoming visit.”
Hours before the president’s arrival, more than 50 protesters with the the human rights activist group Ladies in White were arrested during a march, USA Today reported. The group, which marches every Sunday to demand better human rights, thought the president’s visit may make authorities more lenient, but they were quickly rounded up and arrested.
