Patriot Act bars Cuban rebels from asylum

Posted on Wed, Apr. 12, 2006

IMMIGRATION
Patriot Act bars Cuban rebels from asylum

Supporters of an old anti-Castro rebellion are having difficulties
getting asylum in the United States because the Patriot Act labels them
terrorists.
BY PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON - Four decades ago, thousands of Cubans took to the Escambray
mountains in a CIA-backed guerrilla war against Fidel Castro. Today,
U.S. law brands them as terrorists.

In a twist of fate, 320 Cubans on the island with links to that armed
revolt are now having problems winning U.S. political asylum because the
Patriot Act bars asylum for terrorists and people who help them.

The Department of Homeland Security says the holdups affect 160 asylum
applications involving 320 individuals who joined or helped the
anti-Castro guerrillas, as well as some of the close relatives of the
asylum seekers.

Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services, said lawyers from Homeland Security and the departments of
State and Justice are trying to resolve the legal tangle of who's a
terrorist and whether civilians who provide willing or unwilling support
to terrorists should be denied asylum.

''We're trying to develop a policy that could be used across the board
for any types of cases . . . to develop a process that will allow us to
exercise discretion,'' Strassberger said. ``Until that time, we're not
denying cases, but we're not approving cases either.''

The Escambray guerrillas and many other anti-Castro movements were
supported by the CIA in the early 1960s with food, weapons and even
explosives meant for sabotage. All the groups were wiped out by the late
1960s by Castro troops in what the government called a ``struggle
against bandits.''

Cuban exile groups are stung by the plight of the asylum seekers.

''This really hurts because these are the people that have been
forgotten by history and the world,'' said Cuban exile activist Ramón
Saúl Sánchez of the Miami-based Democracy Movement. Most of the
guerrillas got no CIA help, he said.

''They fought with dignity . . . and practically naked, starved and with
their bare hands, they resisted the dictatorship that is today the
despair of the Cuban people,'' he added.

Citing privacy concerns, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services won't
identify the Cuban asylum applicants and would say only that all the
applications were made after the Patriot Act was passed in October 2001.
It's not clear why the asylum seekers did not apply before the act was
approved.

The Patriot Act defines terrorism as ''any activity which is unlawful
under the laws of the place where it is committed.'' The definition,
Strassberger said, also includes any use of explosives, firearms or
other weapons ``with the intent to endanger individuals or cause
substantial damage to property.''

Strassberger said that ''in broad terms'' there are no exceptions for
people who were ''forced to provide a meal or an animal'' to rebel
groups but that government lawyers are working on drafting a waiver to
benefit those who supported terrorists because they had no other choice.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), a New York-based organization
that helps victims of political violence, has described the Patriot
Act's impact on some migrants as ``Kafkaesque.''

About 2,000 Colombians who were forced to make payoffs to leftist
guerrillas have been denied asylum so far because of the act, according
to the IRC, as has a Liberian woman who was forced to house rebels after
they killed her father and raped her.

But the Cuban case is especially difficult, the IRC pointed out, because
the asylum applicants will find it hard to convince asylum officers they
were coerced into backing the anti-Castro guerrillas.

Abigail Price, the national immigration director for the IRC, said most
of the rebels themselves are already dead and the 320 are probably
friends or families who provided assistance to the fighters.

''They supported an anti-Castro movement,'' she said. ``The exception of
duress isn't going to work for them.''

Asylum applicants are routinely asked in their interviews with U.S.
government officials if they were involved in an armed movement or
provided material support to one.

Strassberger said the majority of the Cuban cases had a ''basic fact
pattern:'' Individuals provided support that varied from food, shelter,
medicine to arms, ``sometimes willingly, sometimes under duress.''

''That's a distinction that's going to be made, to see who is going to
qualify,'' he noted.

But Price said the Citizenship and Immigration Services -- which is
headed by Emilio Gonzalez, a Cuban American -- isn't being ``given the
flexibility to look at the totality of the circumstances in dealing with
the cases.''

Officials recognize the Cubans' issue is a thorny one involving delicate
national security concerns and a lengthy history of U.S.-backed attacks
on the Castro government.

''We can't run the risk of developing a process that would allow
potential terrorists to get through the system,'' Strassberger said.
``That's the challenge of the law, the way it's written into immigration
laws is very broad in its interpretation of terrorist activities.''

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