Posted on 08/12/2003 9:36:03 AM PDT by bedolido
WEST PALM BEACH -- Five Cuban immigrants waited at sea without a country and three more sat in jail Monday awaiting word on their destinies -- possibly suspended there while in a political dust-up over the United States' repatriation policy.
The people, taken into custody as they made a dash for U.S. soil through the Lake Worth Inlet Sunday evening, await word on whether prosecutors will charge the man who operated the boat and whether immigration officials will forcibly return those who never made landfall to Cuba.
The three men who made it to Singer Island soil remain at the Palm Beach County Jail, while the three men, one woman and operator of the boat -- all of whom never touched soil -- are being held on a U.S. Coast Guard cutter at sea. Under the so-called "wet-foot, dry-foot" immigration policy, Cubans caught at sea are kept at sea and generally sent home.
Those who make it to land are generally allowed to remain in the U.S.
The best shot at citizenship for the four Cubans trapped aboard the Coast Guard vessel with the boat operator may be flipping on him, agreeing to testify in a criminal case. If the four are allowed to come on to U.S. soil to testify, then they could qualify under the "dry-foot" immigration policy.
Leaders to warn Bush
The group's run for freedom comes as political brinkmanship brims over returning immigrants to Cuba. On Monday, a group of influential Republican state representatives was expected to mail President Bush a letter warning him that he risks losing their support in the 2004 election if he doesn't change his Cuba policy. A decision last month to repatriate 12 Cubans suspected of hijacking a boat to Florida ignited the criticism of Bush's overall Cuba policy, according to a story in Monday's Miami Herald.
Six of those returned in that controversial decision went on trial Monday in Cuba facing a maximum 10 years in prison. In April, Cuban authorities executed three men who hijacked a ferry and tried to sail it to the U.S. Exiled Cubans have become increasingly more alarmed and vocal over this recent crackdown on dissidents.
U.S. Coast Guard and Border Patrol officials would not release the identities of the seven immigrants and boat operator detained locally, citing an ongoing criminal investigation against the operator. Agents and prosecutors are likely determining whether they will charge the boat operator with alien smuggling or some other federal crime.
The boat's operator and four migrants are being held on a 110-foot Coast Guard cutter on regular patrol off the coast. They are fed regularly and all are in good health, a Coast Guard duty officer said.
U.S. Border Patrol Agent in Charge Art Bullock said the operator of the boat is a Cuban national who came to the U.S. in 1999 and has been arrested here before, but nothing related to alien smuggling. "We want to charge him," Bullock said Monday.
Bullock said federal prosecutors had not yet reviewed the case and could do so as early as today. Bullock also said the border patrol believes the vessel traveled from the Bahamas to the Florida coast.
Cuban landings pick up
Bullock said Jamaicans and Haitians more often land on Palm Beach County shores than Cubans, who generally head to the Florida Keys or Miami, which are closer to Cuba. But Cuban nationals have tried to reach land in the county twice recently. On May 29, four Cubans landed near Gulf Stream after spending a week at sea in a homemade wooden boat. On March 21, 12 Cuban men landed in Palm Beach.
Bullock said federal law allows for law enforcement agencies to hold material witnesses in criminal cases in custody. "Look at all the Arabs being held since Sept. 11," he said.
The "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy has been in effect since 1995. It was then-President Bill Clinton's way of fashioning an immigration policy to prevent mass migration from the island.
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