BY LESLEY CLARK AND FRANCES ROBLES

The debate from Washington to Miami and Havana over President Barack Obama's next steps toward Cuba heated up Thursday, as the momentum to improve relations with the communist country reached levels not seen in nearly three decades.

Activists and members of Congress held a news conference on Capitol Hill blasting other U.S. lawmakers and the Cuban government -- just hours after the release of a new report by a longtime exile group calling for increased relations.

The rhetoric on both sides of the controversial topic has been revved up in preparation for a highly anticipated announcement from Obama that he will lift the remaining restrictions on Cuban family travel and remittances to the island. The president also has authority to allow more American academic and cultural groups to visit Cuba.

As Obama delays his announcement to coincide with next week's fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad, activists for and against increased travel and trade to Cuba have been busy issuing reports, holding dueling news conferences, sending letters to the president, tapping dissidents on the island and leaking news stories to the national press.

CAMPAIGN PROMISE

The actions illustrate the considerable political jockeying for a say in Cuba policy that has taken place since Obama took office, tilting the status quo in Cuban exile affairs with his campaign promise to revamp Washington's approach.

''What's at work here is that a lot of people are posturing for position on dealing with Cuba,'' said Andy Gomez, a senior fellow at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Affairs. ``For the past 50 years, the Cuban-American community has played a significant role in formulating Cuba policy. For the first time, this will not stop in Miami, but U.S. foreign policy could go directly to Havana.''

Experts say the last time momentum was this strong to improve relations with Cuba was when Jimmy Carter was in the White House.

''People are trying to figure out what's going on in Cuba -- they know that Fidel is no longer running it, they understand that Raúl is, and he's consolidating his power,'' a senior State Department official told The Miami Herald Thursday.

''But the big question is: Is this the beginning of a larger set of changes that will lead to some kind of political opening that would allow us to engage in a new and meaningful way? And that is what explains the interest in the Congress, and that explains the interest in the region,'' said the official, who could not be named because of State Department rules.

He said the administration would like to ''transform'' the relationship with Cuba -- but slowly.

''It's going to move in a way that will elicit responses from Cubans themselves,'' he said.

Among those offering counsel to the administration: the Cuban American National Foundation, which, after decades of being at the forefront of conservative Cuban activism, has vastly changed its outlook. On Thursday, the foundation called on Obama to push for change on the island from within by engaging in ''targeted'' diplomatic efforts with the regime, increasing support for Cuba's fledgling civil society and boosting ''people-to-people'' exchanges.

''This is a time of opportunity,'' said foundation President Francisco ''Pepe'' Hernández. ``We're not talking about sitting down for negotiations, but reducing a tone of confrontation and making this about the Cuban people.''

The foundation's report calls for direct aid to dissidents -- rather than sending the money through organizations in Washington and Miami -- and for resuming the migration talks the Bush administration suspended in 2004.

DELEGATION BLASTED

Hours after the foundation report was issued, two former Cuban political prisoners and Republican congressional backers of the U.S. embargo against Cuba lambasted a delegation of the Congressional Black Caucus that visited Havana earlier this week for failing to meet with dissidents on the island.

Republican Reps. Chris Smith of New Jersey and Frank Wolf of Virginia said they have been trying to meet with political prisoners but have twice been blocked from visiting Cuba by the Castro government. They were filing a third request Thursday.

They accused the U.S. legislators, who met with the Castro brothers, of ''gushing with praise'' for them but doing ``nothing publicly to show any concern for the myriad gross human rights abuses perpetrated by the Cuban government.''

Smith charged that by not raising human rights issues, the delegation sent the wrong signal to the regime.

''When the tragic plight of political prisoners is ignored, suppressed, devalued or trivialized by visiting politicians,'' he said, ``the bullies in the gulags are given a free pass to inflict pain.''

In a statement, Caucus chair and delegation leader Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said ``everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but by any objective standard our current policy toward Cuba just hasn't worked.''

Lázaro Miranda and Félix Cifuentes, two Afro-Cubans who said they had been imprisoned by the regime, criticized the Caucus delegation for not seeking out the opposition during their trip to Havana.

''They didn't get the real picture, because they were not looking for the real picture,'' said Cifuentes, who spent nine years in Cuban prisons.

The opposing views illustrate a looming fight over Cuba policy, which critics argue is an ineffective relic of the Cold War, but supporters say provides an incentive to prod the Cuban regime to improve its human rights record.

Obama has said he supports keeping the economic embargo against the island. Two bills in Congress, however, would lift all travel restrictions, allowing any American to travel there.

In Miami on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Alan S. Gold will take up a challenge to a 2008 state law that seeks to stem travel to Cuba by requiring travel agencies to post up to a $250,000 bond and pay up to $2,500 in state registration fees -- nearly 10 times the standard amount.

The measure was supposed to take flight last July, but Gold temporarily suspended it following a lawsuit by more than a dozen South Florida travel agencies.

Miami Herald staff writers Laura Figueroa and Jacqueline Charles contributed to this report.