Posted on 03/23/2005 5:42:26 PM PST by LibFreeUSA
MIAMI -- After trying to first float to the United States in a 1951 Chevy truck and then in a 1959 Buick, a Cuban family has finally made it, this time by taxi. Luis Grass Rodríguez, 36, his wife, Isora Hernández Hernández, 27, and their son, Angel Luis, 5, arrived in Miami on Sunday, more than a year after their second unsuccessful attempt.
"I had a desire to leave Cuba, to live in a place where I wouldn't be bothered, where my children could have a better future and, above all else, freedom," said Grass, who made it to Texas in a cab from Mexico this month. "Unfortunately, that does not exist in Cuba." The Grass family was among the Cubans who made headlines in July 2003 by using a vintage vehicle as a makeshift boat. After their second unsuccessful attempt in February of last year, the U.S. Coast Guard took them to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
After 10 months, U.S. officials relocated the Grass family to Costa Rica in December, and from there the three made their way to Mexico, where on March 12 they took a taxi across the U.S. border at Brownsville, Texas. They asked for political asylum, and federal immigration officials admitted them into the country. Grass, a mechanic, recounted how he and his friends made his Chevy amphibious, assembled it on a beach and launched it in the middle of the night. Cuban Coast Guard officers saw them, but could not believe ....
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
"I see my truck as a symbol of freedom, a way of allowing the world to understand why people in Cuba are desperate enough to invent a floating truck."
ARE YOU LISTENING HOLLYWOOD? Cubans flee Cuba even at the risk of death and all Hollywood can do is praise Castro.
Sounds fare to me.
That is a cool story! Someone with this much drive and ingenuity should make for a good US citizen.
I remember how the Florida beaches were littered with remnants of rafts during the last mass migration. These weren't logs lashed together, they were surprisingly well engineered. But then again, those were the ones that made it to the coast. How many met a different end? But Danny Glover and his ilk want us to think it is a paradise under Castro.
He's Got A Plan
Zippo Hero
Seven Dead Monkeys Page O Tunes
"Someone with this much drive and ingenuity should make for a good US citizen."
So the guy that dresses as a car seat to get here from Mexico has ingenuity, and any Mexican with the stamina to make a desert crossing certainly has drive, but they are bad and must be sent home. Why is it we love the Cuban illegal immigrant but hate the Mexican, just because the Cuban is escaping communism and the Mexican is only escaping poverty and a (very corrupt) democracy.
Not trying to pick any fights here but it is a curious thing to me.
Cubans risk their lives to come to America and face political concentration camps if they are returned . Mexicans do not.
BTW, who hates Mexicans? The Mexican government?
Yeah, in Mexico they just kick their people out because they're too much of a burden.
The young man is a member of our family and Texas A&M soon to be graduate. He was very emotionally affected by this event.
Island Turned should be Island Turneffe
Can you IMAGINE growing up in a tyranny you wouldn't send your worst enemy to? That's right, you are a little kid and you are also in castro's communist Cuba. It's kind of unthinkable.
You wouldn't be exposed to freedom, your "apartment" would be a health hazard, you'd know all about ration cards, your odds of being from a broken home would be high, you'd eat inferior food, you'd know what the black market was, you wouldn't be allowed to go to church, you'd learn early to keep your mouth shut, you'd be taught that snitching is your 'revolutionary duty,' your 'education' would be communist parroting, you wouldn't be allowed to pick out your own books, and you'd never experience the trust and freedom and friendship that all little children need to become well-adjusted, thinking people when they grow up. You wouldn't get that.
What's more, if you ever wanted to change that, or your mother or father did, you'd be subject to one of the most dangerous high-sea voyages in a rickety raft known in the world today. You might make it to freedom (where you'd learn all about safety standards! Like child seats in your car - ironies!). Or you might meet a watery grave. You wouldn't know until you try. And you must try.
Eloquently put, by Babalu
But but but , Cuba is so perfect. Why would anybody want to leave !?
By asking for asylum and running the risk of being deported back to Cuba, they followed the law and became LEGAL immigrants when they were granted asylum. If they had not asked for asylum they would have had to enter the system through a different process I.E.:applying for legal immigrant status before entering the country.
When mexicans, or other nationals, sneak into the country and don't go to the government and ask for asylum and then obtain fake id and get jobs that pay under the table and not pay taxes, then they are ILLEGAL immigrants. The distinction is obvious to people who want to see it, but to people who think that anyone has the right to enter our borders without due process then they won't see the distinction between legal asylum and illegal entry without asylum.
I would guess you are one of the latter, correct?
Well put, my friend.
I thank you for your well reasoned post. That does make a lot of sense. I was thinking about this and wondered if perhaps it was partially a numbers issue (so many mexicans) as well.
"I would guess you are one of the latter, correct?"
No I am more on the Tancredo side of the fence than the Bush side on the immigration issue. Your post helps me to clarify my thinking in regards to the Cuban issue, again thanks FRiend
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