|
The Miami
Herald. Wed, Jun. 26, 2002.
Three Cuban migrants swim a mile to Keys
KEY WEST, Fla. - (AP) -- Three Cuban migrants jumped from their boat near
Plantation Key and swam a mile to shore with the U.S. Coast Guard in pursuit,
officials said.
Two others that tried to swim to land were caught by authorities.
The Coast Guard was alerted early Tuesday that eight Cuban men were on a
12-foot aluminum boat with a 26-horsepower engine south of Key Largo, said Coast
Guard spokeswoman Anastasia Burns. When they arrived on the scene, five of the
men jumped in the water -- some with fins and snorkel masks.
Cuban migrants who reach U.S. soil are generally allowed to stay, but those
intercepted at sea are returned.
The three who reached land were taken to Krome Detention Center in
Miami-Dade County and expected to be released.
Border Patrol officials say more than 2,000 Cuban migrants came illegally by
boat to Florida last year.
Cuba embargo under fire
Group cites benefits for U.S.
By Frank Davies. fdavies@herald.com.
WASHINGTON - A new group on Capitol Hill backing changes in U.S. policy
toward Cuba began a push Tuesday to end the 40-year ban on travel to the island,
citing benefits to the U.S. economy.
If the travel ban were lifted and U.S. airlines, cruise ships and tour
operators were allowed into Cuba, $523 million in revenue would be generated for
the U.S. economy and about 3,200 jobs created in the first year, according to a
new study.
By the fifth year after the ban is lifted, more than two million Americans
would be visiting the island, predicted Ed Sanders, a tourism consultant who
conducted the study for the Cuba Policy Foundation.
The foundation is a nonpartisan group that supports an end to the U.S.
embargo and receives funding from the Ford Foundation and corporations
interested in doing business in Cuba.
House backers of an end to the ban on travel, who won a 240-186 vote on the
issue last summer, said that this year they think it can pass Congress, despite
the firm opposition of the Bush administration.
''The right to travel is a core, constitutional principle, and in the public
there's a deep and profound revulsion over this ban,'' said Rep. William
Delahunt, D-Mass., ridiculing fines levied on ''Iowa grandmothers'' bicycling
around Cuba.
He cited a poll in April by Bendixen and Associates that showed 46 percent
of Cuban Americans supported lifting restrictions on travel to Cuba, with 47
percent against changing the current policy.
Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Delahunt head the Cuba Working Group, formed
earlier this year to promote changes in U.S. policy. The group includes 22
Republicans and 22 Democrats.
Flake acknowledged that his party's House leaders have blocked lifting the
travel ban, but he thinks that may change.
''At some point, other politics will overwhelm Florida politics,'' said
Flake, who called the travel ban ''the most glaring part'' of the U.S. embargo.
Under the ban, only academics, researchers, journalists, missionaries and
Cuban Americans -- the largest group -- can travel to Cuba legally. According to
several estimates, about 176,000 U.S. citizens visited the island last year.
The economic impact of ending the travel ban is difficult to assess, and
Sanders conceded that it would ''take five years for real benefits to be seen.''
But he said a ''tremendous pent-up demand and interest in Cuba'' would generate
$1.6 billion in revenue for U.S. business within five years if airlines and
cruise ships were allowed entry.
''Ending restrictions on travel to Cuba would provide a much-needed source
of growth to the U.S. travel sector, particularly the troubled airline
industry,'' said Sally Grooms Cowal, president of the Cuba Policy Foundation.
But John Kavulich, president of the nonpartisan U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic
Council, said those projections are probably too rosy. Cuba's infrastructure
would not be able to absorb a big tourism increase.
''There just are not that many good hotel rooms,'' said Kavulich. "If
the ban were lifted, the economic impact on the United States would be quite
limited.''
An official with the Cuban American National Foundation, which opposes
changes to U.S. policy, belittled the economic projections.
''Do Americans really want to stay at beaches where Cubans are not allowed
to go, where there is such discrimination?'' said Dennis Hays, executive vice
president of the foundation. "I would put this study under the heading of
summer fiction.'' | 
