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ST. LOUIS (KTVI) President Obamas move to lift some U.S. restrictions against Cuba is receiving mixed reactions locally.

St. Louis Congressman Lacy Clay praised the presidents actions calling them long overdue. But Missouri U.S. Senator Roy Blunt criticized the decision as one that will encourage our adversaries.

A St. Louis resident of Cuban heritage fears the Obama administration move will end up enhancing the Castro regime.

Jorge Riopedre, an executive with a not-for-profit health clinic, is the son of Cuban refugees who were forced to flee Cuba in the early nineteen sixties because of actions by the Communists who took over the island nation.

My mother had to flee for her life because of religious persecution. My father and his family were at gunpoint removed from the land that had been theirs for five, six generations, Riopedre explained.

His parents succeeded eventually in earning advanced college degrees and building a good life in Florida. But family relatives who remained in Cuba are trapped in poverty.

The Cuban government controls every aspect of your life, he said noting there is free education but, the government then chooses what your profession is. Riopedre said, on every block of every town there is a person in charge of the defense of the revolution who reports back to the government on what the activities are of the people who live there.

Riopedre said he appreciates President Obamas desire to normalize relations but if the end game is that it will strengthen the Castro government without really changing things for the United States then Im not sure thats the way to go.

He thinks the U.S. would be better to wait until Fidel and Raul Castro die and try to influence the next Cuban government. What keeps the Cuban people downtrodden and oppressed is the Castro government not the United States embargo.

Link:
Local Cuban-American says communism is the problem not U.S. embargo