Washington, D.C. ? It’s time for Congress to end restrictions that for more than half a century have prevented most Americans from visiting Cuba, a bipartisan group of senators said Tuesday.

The lawmakers, at a news conference where they were joined by trade and human rights groups, also made clear that their proposal to allow travel should be a first step toward breaking down economic and trade barriers between the two countries.

The travel embargo, said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., is a “failed policy that has failed for 50 years.”

Lawmakers, backed by business and farm groups seeing new opportunities in Cuba, have been trying for years to chip away at the trade and travel bans imposed after Castro took power in Havana in 1959.