Posted on 05/16/2003 2:04:45 AM PDT by sarcasm
In an apparent first, the United States on Thursday charged two Cuban migrants with threatening U.S. Coast Guard officers who were trying to stop the men earlier this month off Key Largo, a confrontation broadcast live around the world.
Federal officials said they knew of no other instance in which such charges had been brought against Cuban migrants who reached U.S. soil after eluding the Coast Guard.
If convicted, Javier Morales-Molina, 26, and Reinaldo Molina-Morales, 29, face up to 20 years in prison. They also could be disqualified from becoming U.S. citizens.
Attorneys for the men accused federal authorities of trying to make an example of their clients.
'What this all boils down to is a message to the Cuban rafters: `Don't come,' '' said Grisel Ybarra, an attorney for Morales. ``This is the first time that any criminal charges have been brought against Cubans who are seeking asylum. They are not smugglers or smugglees. They are people who came on their own.''
Bond for each of the men was set at $70,000 at a hearing in Key West. They were expected to be transferred Thursday night or today to the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade and could be released to the custody of relatives by the weekend.
The charges against the two men come at a time of heightened tensions between the United States and Cuba and concerns that a recent wave of repression against dissidents might trigger an exodus of Cuban refugees.
As federal prosecutors outlined their case here, another televised Cuban migrant drama unfolded about 95 miles to the north.
Dressed in shorts and bathing trunks and trying to evade the Coast Guard, several Cuban migrants jumped from a 10-foot raft into waters 3 ½ miles east of Rodriguez Key near Tavernier.
STILL IN CUSTODY
Coast Guard officials eventually persuaded four of the men to board one of their vessels, as the two others treaded water. After apparently tiring, they too boarded a Coast Guard vessel. The six are still in the custody of Coast Guard officials and could face repatriation.
Under the United States so-called ''wet foot, dry foot policy,'' Cuban migrants who make it to U.S. land are generally allowed to stay, while those intercepted at sea are returned home.
Margarita Urbay of Marathon said one of the six Cubans intercepted near Tavernier was her son, 47-year-old Daniel de la Torre.
De la Torre, she said, had lived in Marathon from 1980 to 1992 when he was detained by Cuban authorities as his fishing boat drifted near Cuban waters. He was imprisoned for 10 years and began planning an attempted return to South Florida after his release.
The televised images of the encounter between the Coast Guard and the six men was the talk of Spanish-language radio stations, with some people on the air calling on Cubans to protest at the Coast Guard station in Miami Beach.
On Thursday afternoon, a handful of demonstrators stood in front of the facility along the MacArthur Causeway.
''This type of policy is encouraging an incident when one of these days a human life is lost on camera and people will take to the streets in outrage,'' said Ramón Saúl Sánchez of Movimiento Democracia, a Cuban exile group.
The Coast Guard policy on treating Cubans found trying to reach the United States was created in 1995 by former President Clinton in response to the 1994 rafter exodus when more than 35,000 Cubans took to the seas trying to reach Florida.
Before then, any Cuban migrant rescued at sea was brought to the United States. The ''wet foot, dry foot'' policy has sparked a number of violent incidents in which Cuban migrants brandish weapons to resist rescue and Coast Guard officers use aggressive tactics, such as pepper spray, to prevent them from reaching land.
In most instances, migrants surrender or are forced onto Coast Guard boats and returned to Cuba and no charges are filed.
But while Molina and Morales successfully made it to Key Largo on May 6, U.S. officials said they became violent and endangered federal officials trying to detain them.
The two used a knife and part of a boat mast to ward off Coast Guard crew members trying to stop them and two other men, according to federal officials. At one point, a Coast Guard officer drew his handgun and other officers sprayed the men with pepper spray to try to control them.
''We are not going to tolerate any assaults on federal law enforcement officers,'' said Matthew Dates, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Miami.
MAKING POINT
''I think the U.S. attorney is making that point clear that wanting to become feet dry will not mitigate the potential injuries that could occur if you try to assault a law enforcement officer,'' said Capt. Joseph Nimmich, head of the Coast Guard's Group Key West, which includes all of the Florida Keys.
A third migrant who reached shore with the two who were charged -- Alfredo Morales-Molina, brother of Javier and cousin of Reinaldo -- was not charged because he didn't brandish a weapon during the incident, according to authorities.
The fourth migrant, Ramón Aguilar Hernández, climbed aboard a Coast Guard vessel on which he remains.
AWAITING DECISION
Luis Díaz, a Coast Guard spokesman, said the Coast Guard is awaiting a decision from the Department of Homeland Security on the migrant's fate. Aguilar Hernández remained on the vessel because the federal investigation is still ongoing, said Ana Santiago, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
And as U.S. officials weigh what to do with the six men detained on Thursday, Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, R-Fla., called on President Bush to allow them to stay in the United States.
''They obviously risked their lives to reach the shores of freedom'' and ''face severe punishment if returned to Cuba,,'' Diaz-Balart said in a letter to Bush.
demanding to be taken in ...or else....some house guests
If I need a lawyer, it costs me a pretty penny. These guys are still dripping saltwater and they have attorneys?
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