Judge signs off on visas in bridge repatriation case

Posted on Sat, Mar. 18, 2006

CUBAN IMMIGRATION
Judge signs off on visas in bridge repatriation case

A group of repatriated Cubans may soon return after a Miami federal
judge signed off on a new agreement granting them visas. Cuban leader
Fidel Castro will ultimately decide their future.
BY JAY WEAVER
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com

A Miami federal judge has agreed to a new deal between the U.S.
government and the legal team for 14 repatriated Cubans so they can
return to the United States in the wake of their disputed January
landing on an old Florida Keys bridge.

U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno issued his decision late Thursday,
but it remains up to Cuban leader Fidel Castro to decide whether to
allow the migrants to leave the island.

The agreement -- citing ''the humanitarian value'' of resolving the
dispute promptly -- requires the federal government to issue U.S. visas
to the Cubans. But one migrant who made the journey, Lazaro Jesus
Martinez Jimenez, won't be granted a visa because he has a criminal history.

In February, Moreno ordered the U.S. government to make arrangements for
the repatriated Cubans to be brought back to the United States after the
judge ruled they landed on U.S. soil when they reached an abandoned
bridge in the Florida Keys.

The judge found the Cubans ''were removed to Cuba illegally'' in January
after the U.S. Coast Guard wrongly concluded the old Seven Mile Bridge
was not connected to the United States.

Moreno's decision marked the first time the government had been ordered
to allow Cubans into the United States after they'd been repatriated to
Cuba under the ''wet-foot, dry-foot'' immigration policy.

Moreno had given the government a March 30 deadline to consider the
Cubans' eligibility to obtain the appropriate federal documents to enter
the United States. But Castro remained the wild card.

Moreno's geographical finding was a critical point because under the
government's decade-old policy, Cuban migrants who reach U.S. soil are
allowed to stay and apply for residency, but those intercepted at sea
are generally returned to Cuba.

The Keys bridge case exploded into a flash point for the exile
community, which used it to confront the Bush administration's
interpretation of the controversial policy.

The judge's finding only affected the Cubans who reached the old Seven
Mile Bridge -- not the government's overall wet-foot, dry-foot policy,
adopted by the Clinton administration after a 1994 rafter exodus.

Moreno's latest ruling means his earlier order is vacated. As part of
the deal, the U.S. Attorney's Office agreed not to appeal that decision,
which could have brought more legal scrutiny to the wet-foot, dry-foot
policy.

But in the deal reached this week, both sides still agreed to disagree
on the judge's original finding about the old Keys bridge.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/14127680.htm