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Are we ready to care for
Cubans freed from jail?
Jim DeFede. Posted on Sun,
Jan. 16, 2005 in The
Miami Herald.
The Supreme Court was absolutely correct
last week when it ruled that Cubans who
complete prison terms for crimes committed
in the United States cannot be held indefinitely
by federal immigration officials.
Typically, under federal immigration law,
noncitizens convicted of a felony and sentenced
to more than a year in prison are automatically
deported when their prison sentence is completed.
But since the United States and Cuba do
not have a deportation agreement, some Cubans
have spent more than a decade in federal
custody with no hope of being released in
the foreseeable future.
The Supreme Court ruled that if the United
States cannot expect to deport someone within
six months, they have to release them.
AN EX-PRISONER'S ACCOUNT
When I first heard about the ruling, I
called Jorge de Cardenas, who was once one
of the most influential lobbyists in Miami.
In 1997, he pleaded guilty to one count
of obstruction of justice after being caught
in a kickbacks-for-contracts scandal at
Miami City Hall.
But when de Cardenas completed his 366-day
prison term, rather than walk free, he was
taken into custody by the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. Although he had
come to this country from Cuba in 1958,
he never became a U.S. citizen, deciding
instead to hold on to his Cuban citizenship
as a point of pride.
In December 1998, De Cardenas was sent
to a rural county jail in Louisiana that
contracted with the government to house
Cuban detainees.
''I met Cubans who were in detention for
16, 17, even 18 years,'' de Cardenas recalled.
"Everyone there had been in custody
for at least 10 years. All of them had spent
more time in jail being held by the INS
than they served for their original crimes.''
De Cardenas was lucky. He spent only nine
weeks there. His health deteriorated and
his attorneys convinced the INS to release
him on humanitarian grounds.
De Cardenas hopes the court ruling will
free his one-time jail mates. ''No one who
has completed serving their prison term
should just be held indefinitely,'' de Cardenas
said.
Said Cheryl Little, executive director
of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center:
"I remember getting letters from these
guys in Louisiana and California and the
other places they were all sent. They had
pretty much lost hope. They had been in
custody for 10 or 15 years, and they thought
they would be in prison for the rest of
their lives. All they wanted was another
chance.''
And now they'll get it.
But is that really the end of the story?
IT'S A HUGE LIFE TRANSITION
There are more than 740 Mariel Cubans who
are now likely to be released. One critic
said the Supreme Court was releasing a bunch
of Scarfaces -- referring to the Al Pacino
movie character.
Setting aside the hysterical bigotry in
that comment, there is an issue which hasn't
been discussed yet. Are we ready for them?
The federal government has been warehousing
these men, shipping them from one barbaric
jail to another. Since they were perceived
to be on their way out of the country, there
was never an attempt to offer them educational
services or programs designed to rehabilitate
them.
It's also likely that some of them suffer
from mental illnesses for which they have
received no treatment. De Cardenas described
in horrifying detail how one of the Cubans
in his jail cell kept him awake for 30 hours
by continuously screaming obscenities at
him.
So while I applaud the Supreme Court ruling
as fair and just, I wonder what we are doing
here in Miami to make sure these men get
the help they need. Is anyone in government
or in the private sector stepping forward
with a plan to provide counseling, job training,
mental health services?
There has always been an unfair stigma
attached to the Mariel Cubans.
Do we do something to help this last boatload
of men from that wave or do we wait for
our nightmares to become a self-fulfilling
prophecy?
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