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Cuba Pipeline Reaches North
By Karen Branch-Brioso
and Anthony Mccartney. The
Tampa Tribune, December 19, 2006.
TAMPA - After three days jammed together
in a 30-foot boat with no food or water,
dodging storms and Coast Guard cutters,
26 Cuban refugees landed off Longboat Key
in Monday's predawn darkness.
More than 15 hours later, the refugees
began emerging from Tampa's Border Patrol
office after a full day of processing and
interviews probing what officials say is
the northernmost landing in memory of refugees
on Florida's west coast.
Yaniel Esteves Concepcion, the first refugee
released, left with high praise for his
treatment by U.S. officials and a few choice
words for the regime he left behind:
"Everything Castro says is a lie."
The 24-year-old also was thrilled to trade
the cramped boat for a more luxurious mode
of transportation. Esteves' childhood friend
Leo Dan of Orlando hugged him, kissed him
and whisked him away.
Jose Hernandez of Tampa arrived in a Ford
Expedition, offering to fill it with as
many refugees as would fit - and care for
them until their families could arrive.
"I know that it's very difficult,"
said Hernandez, who arrived in a boat from
Cuba in 1997 and came to the Border Patrol
station Monday at the urging of a childhood
friend, Jorge Luis Gonzalez Morejon, one
of the refugees.
No one other than his friend took him up
on the offer. Instead, many of the refugees
shuffled barefoot - or in soggy socks -
into the parking lot to wait several more
hours for relatives to arrive from Miami.
Police and federal officials said the refugees'
arrival marked the northernmost "dry-foot"
landing on Florida's west coast that anyone
could recall.
"I don't know of any other landings
further north," said Steve McDonald,
agent in charge of the Border Patrol station
in Tampa. In the mid-1990s, "there
was a landing of a group in Venice."
Smugglers with human cargo from Cuba have
been edging their way up the west coast
of late. Avoiding the more direct routes
to the Florida Keys, they have started dropping
passengers in Southwest Florida venues such
as Marco and Sanibel islands. In August,
20 Cubans landed on Marco Island. Last month,
17 Cuban refugees landed in Sanibel and
28 landed in Naples.
Similar activity prompted the Border Patrol
to establish a special unit of agents in
Fort Myers at the beginning of this year,
McDonald said. That came on the heels of
a stepped-up effort by federal prosecutors
to crack down on smuggling to the area.
Landing May Have Been Unplanned
"We're trying to shut this down as
a route," said Douglas Molloy, chief
assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District's
Fort Myers office, who today will prosecute
a case against alleged smugglers from Collier
County. "I certainly hope they're not
going further north."
McDonald suspects the arrival site may
have been unplanned and a consequence of
circumstances: bad storms and a larger presence
of Coast Guard vessels farther south.
The refugees, 19 men and seven women ages
19 through 59, were shocked to hear how
far they landed from Miami, where many have
relatives.
"They knew that they were somewhere
close to Miami, they thought, but I told
them, 'No, you are one hour to Tampa and
four hours to Miami,' and they said, 'Oh,
my God!'" said Luis Ortiz, a Longboat
Key landscaper whom local police called
to interpret for the group.
Ortiz said the refugees told him they paid
$2,000 apiece to the smuggler: "They
were supposed to have landed in one day,
from Friday morning to Saturday. But it
took those extra days because of the weather,
and, I gathered, from what they told me,
to stay away from the Coast Guard, the smuggler
kind of looked for an easier place to land."
They left Cuba about midnight Friday. The
smuggler dropped them in the surf off Longboat
Key about 4:30 a.m. Monday. They were wet,
shivering and hungry.
At 5 a.m., Dennis Holder, a Brooksville
man who was delivering live shrimp to customers
in Longboat Key, drove around a curve at
Gulf of Mexico Drive and North Shore Road.
"There was a bunch of people standing
out there in the road trying to get people
to stop," Holden said. "I thought
there was some sort of accident with a bus
or something. Then I stopped, and there
wasn't any vehicle around. They flagged
me down, and they wanted me to call the
cops, and I said, 'OK.'"
The Longboat Key Police Department responded
and flagged down a Manatee County transit
bus to take the refugees to the station.
They were sunburned and showing signs of
dehydration. The women were shivering and
soaked, forced to relieve themselves in
their clothes during the trip, Ortiz said.
One refugee, Emilia Zonaida Vazquez Sevilla,
53, of Havana, said local officials' offers
of medical attention, blankets, water, clothing
and "very good snacks" were overwhelming
after the harrowing trip.
"We're very grateful for the way we've
been treated," said Vazquez Sevilla,
who said she felt "physically destroyed"
when she arrived.
The Coast Guard was searching for the smuggler's
vessel, a 30-foot boat with a center console
and inboard motors.
The Border Patrol arrived and transported
the Cubans to Tampa.
Background Checks Run
Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, the refugees
qualify for asylum unless there are available
criminal warrants or records or, for instance,
prison tattoos. The Tampa office of the
Border Patrol ran background checks and
interviewed the refugees.
Had the group been interdicted at sea,
it would have been returned to Cuba under
the "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy.
Adopted 11 years ago in reaction to the
1994 rafter crisis where tens of thousands
of Cubans sailed in the most recent mass
exodus from the island, the policy revised
the Cuban Adjustment Act. The new rule:
If refugees make it to land, they may stay
and apply for legal permanent residency.
If they're interdicted at sea, they're sent
back to Cuba.
With longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro
ailing and his brother Raul in charge, some
fear another potential mass exodus by sea
from Cuba. Soon after the announcement of
Castro's illness, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
urged federal officials to prepare for such
a scenario.
Last week, the Coast Guard in South Florida
conducted an exercise to prepare for a mass
migration from any Caribbean nation. Spokesman
Dana Warr insists the Coast Guard doesn't
expect such a scenario anytime soon.
"We did have an exercise last week,
and that was not because of anything taking
place in Cuba," Warr said. "The
plan that was exercised last week was for
a mass migration, and we have no indication
that's going to happen."
Armando Otero, 46, one of the refugees,
described Cuba as a country that has not
seen discernable change, even since Castro
fell ill in July.
"Over there, there is not any sort
of freedom," Otero said.
He was shoeless, unshaven and cold, but
as he waited for his brother to arrive from
Kissimmee, he said he was glad he made the
trip.
Two men waiting in the parking lot lost
more than their shoes. They had lost the
contact information that linked them to
families here. They wrestled with how to
call home to Cuba to get the information
from relatives.
When a stranger offered a cell phone, several
of the men stood in a circle, surprised.
None of them had ever used a cell phone.
News Channel 8 reporter Mark Douglas and
Centrotampa.com producer Katie Coronado
contributed to this report.
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