Car-Boat Cubans Get Chance to Pursue U.S. Asylum

Reuters ^ | 2/11/044 | Jane Sutton

[Valin]

MIAMI (Reuters) - Three Cuban migrants who tried to sail to Florida in a vintage U.S. truck and a car converted into boats won a chance on Wednesday to pursue their request for political asylum in the United States, a Cuban exile group said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security agreed to send the trio to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to await a review of their asylum requests, according to the Cuban exile group, which went to court seeking to prevent their repatriation to Cuba.

The trio -- Luis Grass, his wife Isora and their 4-year-old son, Angel Luis -- were among 11 Cubans who tried to cross the Florida Straits last week in a boat made from a green 1959 Buick automobile.

The other two families aboard the Buick were repatriated to Cuba on Tuesday and, after a day of interrogation by Cuban authorities, returned home on Wednesday despondent that the United States had not allowed them to stay.

The Grass family and another passenger on the Buick boat had tried the same trip in a modified 1951 Chevy truck in July, only to be picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard at sea and sent home.

The Coast Guard said it intercepted the group on the Buick craft on Feb. 3 about 45 miles off the north coast of Cuba and took them aboard a Coast Guard cutter.

U.S. immigration policy generally calls for repatriating Cuban migrants intercepted at sea.

But the Department of Homeland Security gave the Grass family a reprieve, agreeing instead to send them to the Guantanamo base to review their claims that they would be persecuted if sent back to Cuba, according to the Democracy Movement, the exile group.

"A letter came from Homeland Security in Washington saying the people had credible fears of persecution and they are going to be taken to Guantanamo," group leader Ramon Saul Sanchez said.

The Grass family had applied for visas to emigrate to the United States, relatives said.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment. The Coast Guard, which earlier acknowledged it had the trio aboard a Coast Guard cutter, declined to say whether they were en route to Guantanamo.

Back in the Havana, Marcial Basanta, who along with Grass masterminded the Chevy and Buick voyages, said he felt defeated.

"I never imagined the U.S. government would send me back, because here I have problems. I feel hurt," Basanta told Reuters. But he was happy to hear that Grass had not been repatriated.

"The sacrifice was not in vain if at least one of us was saved," he said at his home in the poor neighborhood of Diezmero, where several hundred residents turned out to meet the repatriated families. Many said they wished to leave Cuba. (Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Havana)

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

[Valin]

The trio -- Luis Grass, his wife Isora and their 4-year-old son, Angel Luis -- were among 11 Cubans who tried to cross the Florida Straits last week in a boat made from a green 1959 Buick automobile.

Ya gotta love it!

[cyborg]

good for them

[Valin]

Ping

[Valin]

Come on. Anyone who makes a boat out of a 59 Buick I say let em in. I'd pay cash moeny to see the Buick.

[cyborg]

Jesse James would be proud.

[Valin]

I don't get the connection.

[cyborg]

Monster Garage on Discovery Channel I think. He turned a volkswagen beetle into a swamp boat.

[Valin]

AHH.

[Brimack34]

Alright!! Who do we call to vote for these guy's??

[Prodigal Son]

I just wish the Coast Guard wouldn't sink these hybrid vessels. If anything should go into the Smithsonian- it's these old Detroit vintage autos that have been turned into 'freedom boats' to help someone escape oppression and come to a free country.

In my opinion, they are just as important as the lunar capsules and should be preserved (well, within reason).

That antique truck... Man, think about that truck. Made when quality really, really mattered. Tough, rugged. Sent off to Cuba for decades. Finally, it finds itself on the open sea. What must that truck have been thinking? 'I'm going home!!! I'm going back to America!!! I'm not supposed to swim but I'm doing it by God- I'm going home!!!'

And what did we do? Sunk it. That thing should've went in a Freedom Museum somewhere so statists, socialists, Greens etc could look at it and marvel over how much people hate their system.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"...a Cuban exile group said."

We're not a "Cuban exile group", we're a group of concerned Americans.

I think they'll get to stay.

Next on their agenda, competing in Junk Yard Wars.

:-)

[utahagen]

Luis Gonzalez! It's so good to see you again on the freeper boards. I still pray for Elian and Marisleysis and I still love the Cuban Americans in Miami. I said a prayer when I read about these latest Cubans. May God let this family stay here.

God bless you, Luis.

[Kennesaw]

I Love these Guys!! They show perseverance, tenacity, intelligence, and ingenuity. I think they would make great Americans. They are welcome in my neighborhood any day.

[hchutch]

Hey, Telemundo or Univision could use these guys to compete with Discovery and TLC on that front. :)

Hopefully, they get to stay, because I don't see Fidel Castro's thugs letting them get a third chance to make it here.