U.S. Suspends Cuban Visa Applications : Immigration: Officials cite a backlog. Indications mount that tourist papers lead to permanent moves.

The State Department on Monday temporarily banned new applications for tourist visas from Cuban citizens, with the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana inundated by petitions to join the exodus from the troubled country.

Officials in Havana have reported a doubling of demand for documents authorizing temporary visits to the United States, and indications are mounting that increasing numbers of Cubans are using them as entree for a permanent move to this country.

High unemployment rates and growing shortages of basic goods--symptoms of a rapidly deteriorating Cuban economy--have contributed to a sharp upsurge in citizens fleeing to south Florida by raft or boat.

In announcing the decision, the State Department said its action is intended to allow its officers in Cuba to concentrate their efforts on a backlog of 28,000 applications for temporary permission to enter the United States.

The burgeoning demand for tourist visas, most often valid for a six-month period, represents what many experts believe to be a principal route in an exit scramble that has seen more refugees leaving Cuba for the United States than at any time in a decade.

Most Cubans who have fled the island since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 have done so mainly to escape political repression. But the new exodus appears to be largely economic in origin, reflecting the extent to which Cuba has become a casualty of the political revolution that has swept Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

The collapse of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe has brought an end to much of the patronage on which Cuba had depended. The Soviet Union, beset by its own economic problems, is providing reduced economic and military aid to its longtime Caribbean ally.

A top White House official made clear last week that President Bush will press demands at this week’s summit meeting in Moscow for the Soviets to cut that assistance even further. China, the other chief source of substantial aid to Cuba, faces similar demands.

With both benefactors eager to win trade concessions from the United States, the pressure campaign has undermined what remains of Cuba’s traditional props and could result in the further deterioration of an economy that already is showing clear signs of distress.

Experts believe that the income of the average Cuban citizen is declining by at least 5% a year, and there are growing shortages of even the most basic necessities, including underwear and soap.

The most visible consequence of the new deprivation is apparent in the increasingly crowded waters of the Florida Straits, where refugees take to rubber rafts and inner tubes in hopes that the current will carry them to a better life in the United States. Already this year, the Coast Guard has rescued 900 Cubans from the passage--more than twice as many as in all of 1990.

But even more of those fleeing the island’s post-Cold War poverty now appear to be entering the country by more conventional means--using ordinary tourist visas and then applying for permanent residence under statutes that afford Cubans special status.

Already this year the United States has granted temporary travel permission to 36,000 Cubans, while refusing only 5,000 applicants. Although immigration statistics are not conclusive, federal officials say records suggest that at least one-third of the Cubans who enter the United States under the tourist visas do not return.

The attraction of that gateway into the United States may in large part be responsible for the rising mountain of paper in the American interests section in Havana, which since October has received 70,000 tourist visa applications, about twice the rate of a year ago.

But the State Department noted Monday that the demand has been made even more fierce by Castro’s unexpected decision to relax age restrictions that had prevented much of the population from traveling abroad.

The move, seen by experts as an attempt to provide an outlet for discontent, had been urged by the United States. But the State Department complained in an official statement that without advance notice of the change, which has been implemented in stages over the last year, it was unable to keep pace with the new surge of applications.

The State Department action will not affect processing of refugee cases or applications for permanent immigrant visas, but it is likely to block new tourist visa applications from Cuba for at least two months, an agency official said.

The official said that part of the reason for the lengthy delay will be to provide consular officers enough time to better scrutinize the outstanding applications to ensure that the prospective Cuban tourists do not intend to overstay their welcome.