© Agence France-Presse/Marcelino Vazquez Cuban President Raul Castro (R) and his grandson and bodyguard Raul Dominguez Castro attend the second annual session of the National Assembly, on December 23, at the Conventions Palace in Havana. Castro has unveiled plans to pardon some 3,000 prisoners for "humanitarian reasons" and "gradually" reform onerous laws restricting foreign travel.
The pardons include 86 foreigners from 25 countries, and will take place "in the coming days," Castro said in an address to the National Assembly Friday in which he vowed to "gradually" reform laws limiting foreign travel.
The United States said Saturday that it was "deeply disappointed" that State Department contractor Alan Gross, 62 -- held since December 2009 and convicted on espionage charges -- was not included in the release.
Castro said factors that played into the pardon decision included requests from the Catholic Church and various Protestant churches, and the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
The pardon is the largest ever under the communist regime, much larger that the 299 prisoners released ahead of the visit of then-pope John Paul II in January 1998.
Cubans were keen to hear about migration reform, which Castro -- the ex-defense chief who took over from his brother, revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, in July 2006 -- has promised but not yet delivered.
"I reaffirm my unswerving will to gradually introduce the changes required in this complicated area," Raul Castro said.
Many people "consider a new migratory policy an urgent issue, forgetting the exceptional circumstances that Cuba is going through," he added.
He was referring to the decades-old US trade embargo on the island and Washington's alleged "subversive" policy, "always on the lookout for any opportunity to reach its known purposes."
Castro said the administration of President Barack Obama in Washington "lacked political will to improve relations with Cuba," but he reiterated Havana's readiness to move toward normalization of relations.
The State Department meanwhile deplored the fact that Gross was not included in the release, "especially in light of his deteriorating health," spokesman Mark Toner said.
Gross was found guilty in March of "acts against the independence or territorial integrity" of Cuba and sentenced to 15 years in prison for delivering laptops and communications equipment to Cuba's small Jewish community under a State Department contract.
Earlier this month, a group of 19 US senators sent a letter to the Cuban government asking for Gross to be released, saying he had lost 100 pounds (45 kilograms) and suffers from numerous medical conditions, while his wife is struggling to support his daughter and mother, who both have cancer.
"We continue to call on the Cuban authorities to release Alan Gross and return him to his family, where he belongs," Toner said.
Cuba's Communist Party Congress in April approved a raft of reforms aimed at keeping the centrally-planned economy from collapse but without any broad embrace of market-oriented change.
The National Assembly's second annual meeting, which opened on Friday, was expected to unveil migration reform, but neither the government nor the state-run media have given details of the reforms being considered.
Local experts believe Castro intends to end the requirement of exit visas for Cubans on the island, entrance visas for Cubans living overseas who return home, and the legal status of "permanent emigrant."
The law essentially brands those deemed to have left illegally as defectors -- allowing their homes and assets to be seized by the Western Hemisphere's only one-party communist regime.
Cubans usually can only leave the country legally when they have received a letter of invitation from overseas. Then they have to request an exit visa in a maze-like bureaucratic process that costs about $500.
They also need entry visas from the countries to which they travel.
The price is beyond the means of most Cubans, with doctors and street cleaners alike making about $20 a month.
The Roman Catholic Church and regime-friendly personalities have joined a chorus of Cubans calling for an end to the rules.
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