By Jack Kelley, USA TODAY. 03/09/00- Updated 11:28 PM ET
CARDENAS, Cuba - Despite the costs and risks involved, an increasing number of Cubans are leaving the island each year bound for the United States.
"Unfortunately, there has been a notable increase recently" in smuggling, Cuban Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez says. "The illegal traffic of people is a dangerous, unscrupulous business, and Cuba intends to adopt the most severe measures against these people."
Last year, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted at sea 1,343 Cubans trying to make it to the United States, up from 1,047 in 1998. The number has risen steadily since 1996. U.S. officials attribute the increase to a burgeoning smuggling industry that is trying to take advantage of a change in U.S.
policy in 1994.
That year, the United States, in an effort to limit the increasing number of immigrants, decided that only Cubans who physically touched U.S. soil could stay in the country. Those apprehended at sea would be returned to Cuba. The policy has become known as "wetfoot/dryfoot."
Before then, nearly all Cubans who made it to U.S. waters -- 12 miles from shore -- were considered political exiles and given citizenship under a 1966 law.
The smugglers quietly advertise that they can drop Cubans within swimming distance of Florida's shores, enabling them to walk onto U.S. soil.
"These (smugglers) are dangerous. They are like a new Mafia," says Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly. "And the U.S. has to take some responsibility. Its laws are encouraging this business and people, like Elian (Gonzalez)'s mother, to go to extremes to leave."
Prices for a smuggler's services vary widely.
For $100 to $500 per person, a smuggler will ferry a person 12 miles out, into international waters. There, the smuggler will drop the person into the water and tie him to an inner tube. He is then on his own to paddle the remaining 78 miles to Florida. Very few, if any, passengers survive the
voyage, U.S. officials say.
For $1,000 to $3,000, a smuggler will ferry a passenger in an aluminum or wooden boat, often homemade, across the Straits. The voyage usually takes two to nine days, depending on the weather. About half of these passengers make it to Florida, U.S. officials say.
For $7,000 to $9,000, a smuggler from Miami will ferry a passenger on a cigarette boat to south Florida. The boats, which can travel up to 125 mph, often arrive within three hours of leaving Cuba. Most, if not all, of these passengers arrive safely in Florida.
Cigarette boats sit so low in the water that they avoid radar detection and are so fast they often outrun U.S. Coast Guard vessels. They're also equipped with cellular phones, night-vision goggles and Global Positioning Systems to help smugglers navigate.
The smuggling network, U.S. and Cuban officials say, was organized with the help of Miami's Cuban-American community, which often pays the cost of the trip.
"All it takes is a phone call from Miami to Cuba, and all the details are set," U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Dan Geohegan says. "It's as simple as that."
U.S. officials estimate that several dozen Cubans might have made it to Florida so far this year. Forty-three Cubans have been intercepted at sea.
Critics accuse Cuban President Fidel Castro of allowing discontented citizens to leave in an effort to relieve pressure on his regime.
Cuban border guards are no longer under orders to stop or shoot at boats because the boats might be carrying women and children, officials say. Instead, they'll pursue a boat to U.S. territorial waters, where they fax its location and heading to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Cuba angrily denies the accusation and insists it is doing all it can to stop the smugglers. It recently sentenced one Cuban-born U.S. resident to life in prison and another to 30 years for smuggling after their 32-foot boat flipped over on the way to Miami last July. Fourteen people, including
five children, were aboard the boat. One of the passengers, a 45-year-old lawyer, drowned.
At least 53 other smuggling cases are pending in Cuban courts, Alarcon says. "We are doing our part to fight smuggling. We wish the United States would do its part," he says.
U.S. courts prosecuted 46 criminal cases in 1999 against smugglers who tried to ferry people from Cuba to the United States. Most of those convicted received harsh sentences.
However, state courts in Florida, where the Cuban-American exile community is large and powerful, have been more lenient. Recently, a Cuban-American man was sentenced to 16 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to organizing a smuggling voyage last year that left more than a dozen people dead
or missing.
"We know Florida judges are on our side," says Blanco, a smuggler in Cardenas. "The Cuban-Americans there are behind us all the way."
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