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For some Cuban detainees,
freedom's just another word for nothing
By Janet Mcconnaughey,
Associated Press Writer. Dailycomet,
Louisiana, February 17 2005.
He was freed in a city he'd never seen,
with papers he couldn't read.
One of hundreds of Mariel Cubans being
quietly released from prison by U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, Roberto Pedroso-Mesa
had hoped to return to Florida, where he
had lived.
But because he had no one to call for bus
fare, he was driven from a north Alabama
jail to New Orleans. "Immigration brought
me here, up to the Immigration building,
and they let me go right there," he
said through an interpreter Wednesday.
But on Thursday, he had a work card - not
a permanent "green card," but
a temporary card showing it is legal to
hire him. So did two other Mariel Cubans
left a week earlier at the Salvation Army
in New Orleans. A fourth would get his Friday,
said Rusty Wirth, a case manager at the
New Orleans Mission.
Others who have no outside "sponsor"
will get work cards before they leave prisons
in Louisiana or Alabama, said Craig Robinson,
ICE field office director for detention
and removal in New Orleans. (Both employees
and people who deal with Immigration call
it "ice".)
"I hope it becomes a nationwide policy
for all immigrants leaving detention,"
said Sue Weishar, director of immigration
and refugee services for Catholic Charities
at the Archdiocese of New Orleans. "And
certainly the New Orleans district is showing
that it can be done."
They are among 920 illegal immigrants being
released because the U.S. Supreme Court
found that they were being held unconstitutionally.
All are under deportation orders because
of felonies committed in the United States.
Nearly 750 of them had arrived in the boatlift
which brought 125,000 Cubans from the port
of Mariel to Miami in five months during
1980. The others are from other countries.
But their home countries won't take them
back. Because they could not be deported,
Immigration kept them locked up after their
sentences ended. In January, the high court
ruled that was illegal.
Twenty-five states hold Mariel Cubans who
must be freed because of that decision.
Almost 570 are still in custody; about 150
have been released since the Jan. 12 decision.
There's no list of who is heading where,
or even general statistics, said Manny Van
Pelt, an Immigration spokesman in Washington,
D.C.
He said other jurisdictions have bought
bus tickets for those who could not get
friends or relatives to send them. Each
also gets $40 for food, he said.
"We've only heard of one other problem,
and that was with a criminal alien being
released in Pennsylvania," he said.
And it was a different sort of problem.
The man in question was arrested for public
drunkenness about 2 1/2 blocks from the
Williamsport bus station, held overnight,
sentenced to time served and taken to the
bus station, police Capt. Keith Bowers said.
Of those left in New Orleans, three werw
from jail in Etowah County, Ala. Robinson
said he told the sheriff and jailer that
"we would not be releasing indigents
to the streets of Etowah, where there are
little or no social services."
He said he thought it was illegal for his
office to buy the men bus tickets to Miami,
since his office couldn't supervise their
use. They were ferried to New Orleans by
ICE officers on a department route, he said.
Robinson told New Orleans police ahead
of time that the inmates would be arriving,
said Capt. Marlon Defillo, a department
spokesman. But people who provide social
services in New Orleans are upset that nobody
told them.
"It's a very frustrating situation,"
Weishar said.
Pedroso-Mesa, who had little more than
the sweatshirt and khakis he had worn into
prison, said he had worked as a carpenter
for 20 years after coming from Cuba in the
Mariel boatlift. But in 2000, he'd been
sent to prison - for violating probation
after pleading "no contest" to
being drunk and disorderly, he said through
an interpreter.
The letter had the friend's address, he
said, but no phone number.
His bed, for now, is in the ranks at the
Ozanam Inn, one of New Orleans' shelters
for the homeless. The three other Mariel
Cubans were at other shelters.
Longoria said he had received almost 20
calls Wednesday from people offering money
for bus fares, and even jobs.
"It's almost a shame that we're as
generous as we are, because we're going
to be seen as a good dumping ground,"
he said.
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