The State Department’s decision to give Cuban citizens multiple-entry visas was taken unilaterally and offered to Cuban government representatives as a fait accompli, a State Department official told CubaNews.

“The move to let Cuban visitors come and go from the United States without limits for up to five years at a time was presented to Cuban officials in June during recently resumed talks between Havana and Washington, said the spokesperson.

“The B-2 visa validity change was not a formal agenda item in the migration talks,” said the State Department official, who asked not to be identified. “However, the U.S. did inform the Cubans during the talks that this modification would be taking place.”

To qualify for the five-year, multiple-entry visa, travel to the U.S. must be for family visits, tourism, medical treatment and other personal reasons. The application fee for the visa costs $160; other charges may apply.

Before the change in policy, which took effect Aug. 1, Cubans could only apply for a single-entry visa valid for six months.

Cuba may not have been advised of the change in visa policy, but it will have an impact on migration and other issues, suggested analysts familiar with Cuba.

Washington attorney Robert Muse said the ability to travel back and forth may “lessen the probability” Cuban visitors would remain in this country, since they no longer have the sense the visit would be their only chance to visit family in the United States or the only opportunity to emigrate.

The fact Cubans will now only have to pay one visa fee for multiple visits to the United States almost guarantees an increase in the flow of Cuban visitors, Muse said.

“The [visa rule change] should solve a number of problems,” he told us.

The State Department said it acted to bolster its existing policy of reaching out to the Cuban people.

“Why are we doing this? The Obama administration believes these measures, in addition to others, will increase people-to-people contact, support civil society in Cuba and enhance the free flow of information to, from and among the Cuban people,” the official told us in an email, adding that it’ll reduce the wait time for visa interview appointments at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

“This modification does not represent a change in U.S. policy toward Cuba,” said the official, adding that would-be visitors will continue to be rigorously screened. Even so, Muse said the new visa policy is an indication the White House will continue to try to engage the Cuban people.

The policy change did not provoke criticism from Cuban-American lawmakers, who usually criticize Obama’s Cuba policy in Congress.

But Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) blasted the State Department for reinstating bilateral talks just days after the discovery of Cuban weapons on a North Korean ship transiting the Panama Canal. Cuba has said the armaments were obsolete missiles and spare parts that were being sent to North Korea for repairs (see related stories, page 2 and 3).

Diplomats have said that the shipment may have violated tough United Nations sanctions against the regime in Pyongyang.

“The very week it is uncovered that Cuba is violating a UN Security Council resolution, what does the United States do?” Ros-Lehtinen complained. “They reward the Castro regime by sitting down and talking about migration talks and, in fact, they congratulate the Cuban regime for safe and orderly migration. This is unbelievable.”

Even without the North Korean incident, embargo supporters may still have griped about the talks, a result of the 1994 and 1995 U.S.-Cuba Migration Accords.

They were broken off in January 2011, in part because of Washington’s frustration with Cuba’s refusal to release Alan Gross, a USAID subcontractor now serving a 15-year jail term for distributing communications equipment on the island.

The resumption of migration talks is one more indication the White House wants to keep working on ways to change Washington’s relationship with Cuba. So was its muted response to the North Korean incident.

The State Department said the June 17 talks between a U.S. delegation headed by Alex Lee, acting deputy assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, and a Cuban delegation headed by Josefina Videl Ferreiro, director-general for U.S. affairs at Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, centered on “areas of successful cooperation in migration, including advances in aviation safety and visa processing.”

The U.S. delegation reiterated its call for the immediate release of Gross, while the Cuban delegation repeated its request for Congress to repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, which grants legal immigration status to any Cuban who reaches U.S. soil.