Officials say mass migration from Cuba isn't likely, but they're getting prepared

Dec. 13, 2006, 4:53PM
Post-Castro exodus is a concern for U.S.
Officials say mass migration from Cuba isn't likely, but they're getting
prepared
By SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — U.S. homeland security officials say they are
preparing for a remote, but real possibility: that the death of Fidel
Castro could trigger a mass migration from the island nation, landing
refugees in detention centers in Florida, Texas and beyond.

At least that's one of several worst-case scenarios that federal
officials weighed Tuesday at the start of a simulated exercise aimed at
gauging the ability of the Department of Homeland Security and other
agencies to respond to a potential rafter crisis.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. David W. Kunkel, director of the Homeland Security
Task Force Southeast, which led the two-day exercise, stressed that the
U.S. government is not predicting that Castro's death will destabilize
Cuba and spark a massive wave of migration. But, he said, ''We don't
want to be caught flat-footed."

A federal plan to contain a possible exodus from Cuba has been under
review for 18 months and will need final approval from Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff. On Tuesday, federal officials declined to
disclose many details of the plan, but said they are confident it will
curb a wave of migration.

Some state and local officials said they hope that's true, but if
migrants get past the first line of defense, they worry that Florida
could see a repeat of the Mariel Boatlift, a chaotic exodus from Cuba in
1980 that brought 125,000 Cubans to the U.S., most to Florida's shores.

Robert Palestrant, acting director of the Office of Emergency Management
in Miami-Dade County, said the county has the capacity to hold as many
as 78,000 people in the case of a hurricane, but that involves closing
down schools and using them for shelter. Faced with large numbers, he
said, the federal government would have to step in and send migrants to
other parts of the country.

"We can't take on another Mariel," he said.

Though officials with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency
would not discuss their procedures for "emergency migration," sources
who have reviewed the plan said it involves sending Cuban migrants to
detention centers across the country if resources in South Florida are
exhausted.

The plan could have implications for Texas, which is home to the
nation's fifth-largest population of Cuban descent. The state is also a
major player in the for-profit immigration-detention-center business.
Earlier this year, KBR, a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton, was
awarded a $385 million contract from Homeland Security, or DHS, in the
event of an "emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S."

But Coast Guard officials say they are confident it won't come to that.
The agency is dealing with an aging fleet and an increasing number of
illegal immigrants coming through the Caribbean, according to the
Government Accountability Office. The Coast Guard plan calls for
deploying vessels at the first signs of a mass migration, with the
support of the Department of Defense, if necessary.

Strategy draws doubts
Andy Gomez, a senior fellow with the Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, who has sat in on
closed-door meetings with DHS and state and local police, doesn't think
the government is ready to deal with the possible fallout from Castro's
death after nearly 48 years of rule. He said surveys by the institute
put the number of people wanting to leave the island at about 500,000.

"I know there are contingency plans, but I think the biggest issue that
worries the U.S. is large-scale immigration," he said.

"We do not have enough housing, and we need better education and health
services," Gomez said. "We just don't have enough infrastructure to
absorb that large of a number of people."

U.S. officials are also preparing for boats heading from Florida to
Cuba, which would be prohibited by law at a time of crisis. Ramon Saul
Sanchez, a 42-year-old Cuban exile, vows that after Castro dies, he and
other members of the Democracy Movement will take their vessels and
flotillas into the Atlantic and head for Cuba, regardless of warnings by
DHS and the Defense Department.

"If they try to prevent us from exercising our peaceful right to return
to our homeland and to help the Cuban people at a crucial moment, we
will call for civil disobedience," he said.

In South Florida, humanitarian officials said the schools and hospitals
are ramping up.

Castro, 80, underwent intestinal surgery for an unknown ailment in July.
He has scarcely been seen since then, and some U.S. officials think he
is battling terminal cancer.

At the exercise Tuesday, unconfirmed rumors of Castro's death circulated
through the crowd.

"Are we ready? Kind of," said Marielena Villamil, chair of the South
Florida Humanitarian Network for Cuba, a group of nonprofit and
government agencies preparing for the post-Castro era.

"We're just waiting to see what happens," she said, "and praying to God
that things don't get out of hand."

susan.carroll@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4398321.html