By I.M. STACKEL, imstackel@naplesnews.com and MIREIDY
FERNANDEZ, mmfernandez@naplesnews.com. Marco
Daily News. Wednesday, June 13, 2001
U.S. Coast Guard officials intercepted five Cuban refugees off the coast of
Marco Island Tuesday afternoon before taking the asylum-seekers to Key West.
The men were seemingly in good spirits, smiling as they pumped out water
that the battered and green 22-foot center console had taken on in the
afternoon's choppy seas near Cape Romano.
The group will most likely be repatriated to the communist island pending
interviews with representatives from the Immigration and Naturalization Service,
officials said.
"The majority of Cubans picked up at sea are sent back and this is
what's been happening over time," said Petty Officer Scott Carr, a Coast
Guard spokesman. "Unless there's reason to believe they would be in some
danger if they're sent back, then they would be sent to the U.S. naval base in
Guantanamo (Bay) or somewhere else."
The last time Cubans were intercepted at sea in Southwest Florida was in
1994, when three separate groups of refugees were found.
According to the Coast Guard, about noon Tuesday a boater reported seeing a
vessel thought to carry Cuban refugees adrift. The people on board had asked him
for directions, officials said.
"I'm not sure (how well the boater) spoke Spanish. At least that's what
he thought (the Cubans) asked," Carr said. "The good Samaritan then
phoned the Coast Guard."
The marine unit from the Collier County Sheriff's Office sent out three
boats to intercept the refugees, passing a Goodland marina at 12:45 p.m. and
arriving on the scene before Coast Guard officers.
After providing the Cubans with a cooler filled with drinks, deputies
escorted their boat toward Marco, waiting until a 41-foot Coast Guard UTB
utility boat arrived about 2:30 p.m. A fourth sheriff's boat arrived shortly
after.
Collier County sheriff's deputies in two boats follow a vessel that was
carrying five Cuban refugees off the coast of Marco Island Tuesday afternoon.
The Cubans were intercepted and put aboard a U.S. Coast Guard vessel. Gary
Coronado/Staff
Trying to answer questions over the roar of their boat's engine, the men
indicated that they'd been at sea for five days, and nodded "yes" when
asked if they have family in Florida.
Moored just west of Cape Romano, the men were then transferred to the Coast
Guard boat and taken below. They transferred few possessions with them: a
gym-sized canvas zippered bag and a small covered box.
Carr confirmed that by 5:15 p.m. the men already had been transferred to the
110-foot cutter Nantucket — moored 15-20 miles out of Key West — where
they could be held for as long as three days by INS representatives.
"They're being interviewed by an immigration officer," Carr said.
Coast Guard officials wouldn't disclose the refugees' names, and said they
didn't know where in Cuba the trip had originated.
The five men were transferred to Key West, instead of the Coast Guard
station in Fort Myers because "the majority of migrant interceptions happen
off of the Florida Keys," Carr said.
For "logistical and operational" reasons, it makes sense to keep
all of the Cuban boaters in one place, he said.
The men were in good health, and had suffered "minor exposure but
nothing too serious," Carr said. "We brought extra food and water, and
preparations, in case they were severely dehydrated, but they weren't."
Coast Guard officials denied that the Cubans may have been smuggled into the
United States, but South Florida Cuban leaders immediately called the trip "a
smuggling operation."
Five Cuban refugees gulp water given to them by Collier County sheriff's
deputies after being intercepted just west of Cape Romano, south of Marco Island
on Tuesday. Erik Kellar/Staff
They also criticized the U.S. government for what they say is a passive and "restrictive"
approach when it comes to Cubans who try to flee the communist island but are
routinely repatriated.
"These people just want liberty and they want political asylum,"
said Ramón Saul Sánchez, a leader with the Miami-based Democracy
Movement, a group of Cuban activists. "They need at least to be given due
process. Even the worst of criminals — like Timothy McVeigh — gets his
day in court."
Before 1996, when former President Clinton signed a proclamation essentially
ordering the U.S. Coast Guard to intercept Cubans at sea, the Cuban Readjustment
Act of 1966 or "wet foot dry foot" policy was in full force. That
immigration policy offered those who flee Fidel Castro's dictatorship automatic
residency should they land in U.S. soil.
Earlier this year, President Bush extended the U.S.-Cuba proclamation for
another year — something many Cuban leaders are denouncing.
As a result, those who abandon the Caribbean island located 90 miles south
of the Florida straits have a tougher time making it to dry land.
Since the tougher rules were put in place, Coast Guard officials are
preventing Cubans from reaching dry land by intercepting them at sea, South
Florida Cuban leaders say. Once that happens, Cubans are immediately repatriated
— even when refugees say they feel imminent danger if returned, Sánchez
said.
"These people are leaving because of the oppression that exists over
there. If things were fine, we wouldn't see hundreds and thousands of people
risking their lives at sea to make it here," Sánchez said. "The
Coast Guard is playing a cat-and-mouse game where they're trying to catch them
as prey. What (the Coast Guard) is doing is fishing for Cubans."
José Basulto, founder of Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based group
of pilots who search for missing rafters at sea, said Clinton's change in
politics "shut the door to all Cuban rafters" desperately in search of
freedom.
"People are still arriving here but in a different way," Basulto
said. "We don't see many people in rafts anymore because they know it's
less likely they'll make it and be able to stay. Instead, (their family here)
pays smugglers to get them into the country."
Ninoska Pérez Castellón, a leader with the Cuban American
National Foundation, says the only way Cubans aboard a boat can reach U.S. soil
is if they're smuggled in, a trend she's witnessed repeatedly in recent years,
she said.
"What we're seeing is more and more human contraband take place,"
Pérez Castellón said. "These are unscrupulous people who take
a speedboat and fill it up with Cubans and carry them over here."
But Sánchez said there was a more poignant reason why it's easy to
smuggle people into the United States without resistance from the Cuban
government.
"Castro is doing business and charging the relatives of these people
(who live in the United States) excessive amounts of money, like $7,000 a head,
at the expense of families who want to be reunited with their loved ones,"
Sánchez said. "This money goes directly to Castro and he's the one
holding the cards and allowing people to leave the country."
In 1994, two men, a woman and two children arrived in March of that year at
the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Fort Myers Beach. Then in August, 30 men, women
and children landed on the North Naples coast off Wiggins Pass. The group was
held by U.S. Border Patrol agents before being taken to Krome Detention Center
in Miami.
The following month, 11 Cubans landed ashore outside the Port Royal Club in
Naples and were later transferred to Krome.
But just three weeks ago, three suspected smugglers of Cuban refugees were
arrested in a go-fast boat at the county boat ramp just north of Marco Island
with a van and driver waiting at the dock.
Coast Guard officials said Tuesday they anticipate more migrant traffic at
sea in the next few months saying weather conditions are better during the
summer months.
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