After participating in a 10-day delegation to Cuba with Witness For Peace in which he learned about the impact of the United States’ 60 year blockade of Cuba from Cuban doctors, scientists, lawyers, historians, artists, and community leaders, Somerville At-Large City Councilor is planning to introduce a lengthy resolution at tonight’s city council meeting calling on President Biden to remove Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrroism list and calling on Congress to end the failed policy of regime change.

“This blockade continues to inflict daily hardships onto the Cuban people by creating shortages of food, medicine, basic supplies such as toilet paper, building materials, even preventing Cuba from obtaining vital medical equipment and supplies, thus harming the Cuban people who President Biden’s administration claims to support,” the resolution reads. 

In his travels throughout Cuba, Councilor Burnley Jr was accompanied by other elected leaders and activists from Massachusetts and Minnesota, including Somerville resident and Cuban-American Virginia Faust. Faust, whose family has been split by the blockade, was able to meet some of her family members for the first time because of the trip and felt personally how ending the blockade could be healing for both Americans and Cubans.

The Somerville resolution, which notes how “Somerville’s residents, burgeoning biotech industry, as well as Tufts University would greatly benefit from the medical, academic, and cultural collaboration that would result from the normalization of ties with Cuba,” follows similar resolutions that have passed in Brookline, Cambridge, and most recently Boston. 

It is expected to pass unanimously.