Eight Cubans Caught on Floating Buick Returned Home; 3 in Limbo

AP ^ | Feb. 10, 2004

[nuconvert]

Eight Cubans Caught on Floating Buick Returned Home; 3 in Limbo

The Associated Press

Published: Feb 10, 2004

MIAMI (AP) - Eight Cubans who tried to reach the United States in a 1959 Buick converted into a boat were sent back to their homeland Tuesday by the Coast Guard. A judge has not decided what to do with three others who were in the car. The Cuban family of three remained on a Coast Guard cutter at sea while a federal judge in Miami decided whether they have any right to enter the United States.

The group of 11 was intercepted at sea after being spotted aboard the tailfinned boat by a U.S. patrol plane off the Florida Keys.

Luis Grass Rodriguez, his wife and 4-year-old son are being treated differently because U.S. diplomats had interviewed him in Havana on a visa request after a previous attempt to reach the United States over the summer in a Chevy pickup truck converted into a boat.

With few exceptions, U.S. policy allows Cubans who reach U.S. soil to stay but turns back anyone intercepted at sea.

Ninety Cubans intercepted on three suspected smuggling missions in recent days have been returned to Cuba, authorities said.

[SwinneySwitch]

I thought at first this was the Chevy pickup group. They should all be given medals!

[nuconvert]

It's the same people. New vehicle.

[Tallguy]

Perhaps they heard the Buick Open was beginning on Thursday?

[BigSkyFreeper]

8 Cubans pulled over on the high seas in a Buick for speeding toward America

[BigSkyFreeper]

It's the same people. New vehicle.

Yep, sure is.

[nuconvert]

lol

Actually, lack of speed seems to be part of the problem. They just kind of putter along. If they could really get going, they might make it.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Yeah, they'd make it if they had more speed in their "seaworthy" automobile. They're so ingenious that the pontoon the cars and trucks are attached to, pop right off, making the car or truck worthy enough to drive on dry land.

[nuconvert]

They really deserve a break.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Yep. In about a week, they'll be at it again.

[Old Sarge]

[CaptRon]

I hope they had the sense to tow the vessel in this time!

[nuconvert]

Nope.......they sunk it.

[Peace will be here soon]

For all the work it takes to covert a vehicle into a floating object, you would think they would just build a real boat.

To bad they don`t get "Junkyard Wars" on TV, they could learn something.

[Cagey]

Perhaps they heard the Buick Open was beginning on Thursday?

LOL!

[Servant of the 9]

When is the Buick gonna be on e-Bay?

So9

[nuconvert]

When they retrieve it from the bottom of the ocean.

[martin_fierro]

1959 Buick ... floating Chevy ...

At this rate, there won't be any cars left in Cuba!

[E Rocc]

History repeats itself:

Operation Keelhaul.

In 1945, General Dwight Eisenhower ordered that "Operation Keelhaul" be put into effect. This involved rounding up and shipping back to "their countries of origin" ALL the refugees from communism: men, women and children, soldier or civilian, male or female — even though many of them had been fighting on OUR side during the war. Since all of Eastern Europe was then under Communist domination, sending these people back was, quite literally, a sentence of death, some by immediate execution and the rest by slow extermination from overwork and malnutrition in the Soviet slave labor camps in Siberia. These people were rounded up at bayonet point, forced into freight cars and shipped off to a terrible fate. There was no accurate count kept but the MINIMUM figure was 2,000,000 people and a maximum of 5,000,000. The elimination of all these anti-Communist people made the Communist domination of Eastern Europe MUCH easier. And the American people were kept blissfully unaware of this action which Eisenhower enforced rigidly, even though it violated international law, the laws of his own country and laws of humanity. Germans were prosecuted at Nuremberg for similar crimes but control of the news ensured that Eisenhower, and those under his command who took part in this outrage, were never even officially accused of wrong doing.

-Eric

[nuconvert]

Any bets on the next make and model?