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Repatriated Cubans return
to Cayman
Cayman
Net News, September
6, 2005.
One female and three male Cuban migrants
were repatriated from the Cayman Islands
last week, Deputy Chief Commissioner Donovan
Ebanks has confirmed.
The group of four arrived at Prospect Point
around midday on Tuesday 12 July after eleven
days at sea, as Hurricane Dennis swept through
the area, bringing with it heavy swells,
storm force winds and pelting rain.
Nevertheless, under current Cayman policy,
Cuban migrants detained in the Cayman Islands
are repatriated unless they can prove that
they qualify for refugee status.
For this they must establish a well-founded
fear of persecution on the basis of, for
example, political affiliation, race, nationality,
religion or ethnic origin by standards set
by the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees (UNHCR).
Information was supplied to Net News by
a member of the public that the migrants
had been sent back to Cuba Friday 26 August
but had then returned to the Cayman Islands
because Cuba would not accept them.
After numerous calls to the Immigration
Department, Assistant Chief Immigration
Officer Jeannie Lewis confirmed Thursday
1 September that the four had been sent
to Cuba on Friday 26 August but had returned
to the Cayman Islands. They were then repatriated
the following Wednesday.
Late evening Friday 2 September, Mr Ebanks
informed Net News that the Cuban nationals
were returned the first time on a commercial
carrier, accompanied by eight officers and
arrived back in Grand Cayman at approximately
7:00 pm.
He said that the Cuban nationals were returned
to the Cayman Islands on 26 August because
of a miscommunication between local and
Cuban authorities. The three Cuban men were
not returned to Northward Prison. They were
held between the 26 and 31 August at Central
Police Station.
Mr Ebanks indicated that he has requested
the Chief Immigration Officer to ensure
that the public is made aware of the repatriations
of Cuban nationals when these take place.
A Cuban national, Alex Matos, who now resides
in Puerto Rico, came to the Cayman Islands
to visit two of the men, Reniel Perez and
Yosvanie Falcon, initially claiming to be
their brother. He later admitted that he
was not blood-related.
However, the request to visit them in jail
was turned down, largely because the woman
that Mr Matos was traveling with refused
to give her name to Immigration officers
at the Department (though this would have
been required at the time of her entry into
the Cayman Islands).
The young woman said that she was Mr Matos'
girlfriend, but that she was afraid of the
consequences back home in Puerto Rico if
it was known she helped with this issue.
The Immigration Department did not buy the
story and the jail visit was denied.
Chief Immigration Officer Franz Manderson
explained that the senior immigration officer
who interviewed them on Monday 25 July,
was not satisfied that this was a genuine
visit. They said they wanted to see the
two Cuban migrants to organize a boat for
the brothers to leave the Cayman Islands.
This would not be considered, he said.
However, reports from a US murder investigation
suggest that a group of Cuban refugees detained
by officials on Cayman Brac over a year
ago did, in fact, purchase a boat on that
Island at the end of June 2004, allegedly
from a senior Government official.
As reported in Monday's Cayman Net News,
the US investigation surrounds the disappearance
of one of these Cuban migrants, who died
between Cayman Brac and Texas, where the
group turned up almost two months later.
US officials are investigating whether
the man jumped from the boat purchased on
Cayman Brac in a suicidal act of depression,
or whether he was forced off by two of the
other men on board.
Following the latest repatriations, one
Cuban migrant remains in custody in Grand
Cayman. Juan Guerra, who reached the Cayman
Islands in April, continues to be detained
at Northward Prison by the Cayman Islands
authorities, while awaiting an appeal process
following an initial denial of asylum.
Mr Guerra was one of twenty-nine migrants
who held a protest on 17 April this year
on Cayman Brac. The group walked several
miles from their place of detention at the
Aston Rutty Civic Centre to the Watering
Place Church to protest their detention
by Cayman authorities, and the policy to
repatriate them.
The other twenty-eight protestors have
all been returned to Cuba.
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2005 Cayman Net Ltd All Rights Reserved
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