President Plans Historic Trip to Cuba to Further Ties

President Barack Obama will pay a visit to Cuba in the coming weeks as he works to reopen doors between the United States and the island nation.

Obama's stop in Cuba will be a part of a broader trip to Latin American scheduled in mid-March.

Since Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro moved toward reconciliation more than year ago, the nations have reopened embassies in Washington and Havana as well as moved to restore commercial air travel.

Republican presidential candidates Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., oppose the visit.

Both candidates have ties to Cuba and warn this visit could have damaging reprecussions for the United States.

The former Cold War foe is now requesting that the United States lift economic embargo, but Republicans and Democrats alike argue that repealing those sanctions would reward a government still engaging in human rights abuses.

Cruz, whose father fled to the United States from Cuba in the 1950s, said Obama shouldn't visit while the Castro family remains in power. Rubio, another child of Cuban immigrants, lambasted the president for visiting what he called an "anti-American communist dictatorship."

"Today, a year and two months after the opening of Cuba, the Cuban government remains as oppressive as ever," Rubio said on CNN.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican born in Cuba, called the visit "absolutely shameful."

"For more than 50 years, Cubans have been fleeing the Castro regime," said Lehtinen, the longest-serving Cuban-American in Congress. "Yet the country which grants them refuge--the United States--has now decided to quite literally embrace their oppressors."