28 Cuban migrants repatriation likely

Posted on Tue, Mar. 21, 2006

IMMIGRATION
28 Cuban migrants' repatriation likely

A cruise ship that picked up 28 Cuban migrants over the weekend will
transfer them to a Coast Guard cutter. Another 19 Cubans made it to Sand
Key.
BY OSCAR CORRAL
ocorral@MiamiHerald.com

A Carnival cruise ship was poised Monday to turn over to the Coast Guard
28 Cuban migrants it picked up on the high seas, after having stopped in
Galveston, Texas, over the weekend, Coast Guard officials said.

Meanwhile, another 19 Cuban migrants made it to dry land Monday at Sand
Key, according to Border Patrol spokesman Robert Montemayor. He said 14
were at the Border Patrol office in Pembroke Pines, and five were taken
to a Miami hospital to be treated for dehydration and sun exposure.

As for the 28 on the cruise ship, they most likely will be repatriated
to Cuba unless they can convince U.S. officials that they face political
persecution and qualify for asylum.

Cuban exile activist Ramón Saúl Sánchez said the cruise staff was told
by the U.S. government that instead of turning over the Cubans to
immigration authorities at the Galveston port, they must transfer them
to a Coast Guard cutter at sea because they do not qualify as ``dry foot.''

Coast Guard spokesman Luis Diaz confirmed that the migrants were going
to be handed over to the Coast Guard in the next few days.

The 25 men and three women from Vertientes in the Camaguey province left
from Playa La Mula, Sanchez said. They were heading south, seeking
Honduras. The cruise ship stopped in Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Mexico
before heading to Texas, but none of those countries wanted to accept
the Cuban migrants, Sanchez said.

''The crew of the ship gathered money and clothes to help the migrants.
They were very humane,'' Sanchez said.

Diaz said that all cruise ships and commercial shipping vessels must
alert authorities 96 hours in advance when they plan to arrive at a U.S.
port and provide a complete passenger list. When cruise ship officials
say they are carrying Cuban migrants, the routine is to have them keep
the migrants on board because they are still deemed ''feet wet,'' Diaz said.

Under the controversial wet foot/dry foot policy, most Cuban migrants
picked up at sea are repatriated to Cuba, but those who make it to U.S.
terrority can stay. Migrants of other nationalities are usually
repatriated whether they are caught at sea or on land -- unless they can
show they qualify for asylum.

Sanchez said the migrants were barred from talking to the media, legal
representatives or their families while docked at Galveston.

Carnival Cruise lines, which is based in Miami, referred questions to
the Coast Guard.

Diaz said that a cruise ship can sometimes be considered U.S. territory,
but it must be a U.S.-flagged ship, meaning that it's registered in the
United States. ''There are no U.S.-flagged cruise ships on the East
Coast as far as I know,'' he said.

In the case of the migrants who made it ashore, Montemayor said the
migrants told Border Patrol they left from Villa Clara in Cuba on
Thursday on a wooden rowboat, although the Coast Guard did not find a
rowboat at the scene. He did not know how many were men, women or if
there were children.

Read Miami's Cuban Connection, The Miami Herald's new blog on Cuba and
Cuban exile issues, in the blogs section of the Herald's website, or
type: http://blogs.herald.com/cuban_connection/

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14147235.htm