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Conservative Cuban-American leaders and American scholars have expressed anger over the Obama administration's decision to grant a visa only to the daughter of Cuban President Paul Castro. They have criticized Washington for denying visas to the nearly a dozen other Cubans, who were scheduled to attend an academic conference in California . The angered group said the decision could prove detrimental to improving U.S. Cuban academic ties. Mariela Castro, 50, who is an advocate for gay rights and a niece of longtime communist leader Fidel Castro, will be now allowed to travel to San Francisco next week for a meeting of the Latin American Studies Association and will be visiting New York later. The news provoked a flood of condemnation from Cuban American politicians, including several members of Congress, who strongly opposed the Castro government and are reportedly wary of rewarding or loosening ties with the island's communist regime. In a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a group of legislators blasted the government's "appalling decision to allow regime agents" from Cuba to enter the United States . "This is arbitrary, shameful and cowardly," the Wall street Journal quoted Philip Brenner, a professor and Cuba expert at American University , as saying. "Many of these people are prominent scholars who have a history of advocating improved relations with the United States . All of them have received visas in the past. Why are they now suddenly being turned down on the grounds that they are a potential danger to the United States ?" he added. The State Department officials declined to comment publicly on any individual visa decisions, including the reason for admitting Mariela Castro.

US visa sanction solely to Prez Castro's daughter sparks fury among Cuban-Americans