Cubans slip in to US via Puerto Rican island

Cubans slip in to U.S. via Puerto Rican island

ANDREW SELSKY; The Associated Press
Published: July 3rd, 2006 01:00 AM

MONA ISLAND, Puerto Rico – Taking the back door into the United States,
droves of Cubans are crossing some of the world's stormiest seas and
clambering onto a rugged speck of land belonging to Puerto Rico.

Forsaking the heavily patrolled Florida Straits, Cubans are reaching the
U.S. by flying to the Dominican Republic and traveling about 40 miles by
boat to Mona Island.

In fiscal year 2001, no more than five Cubans landed on Mona. But in the
past nine months, 579 have arrived, Jorge Diaz, a senior U.S. Customs
and Border Protection agent, said last week.

Under the general U.S. "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach
U.S. soil get to stay, while those caught at sea are sent back. A Puerto
Rican nature reserve inhabited by a few park rangers and lots of
iguanas, Mona Island, like the rest of Puerto Rico, is as much a part of
the U.S. as Miami.

On a recent morning, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents,
accompanied by an Associated Press reporter and photographer, sailed 45
miles from mainland Puerto Rico to Mona to pick up two groups of Cubans.

'We prayed for 12 hours'

Eight Cubans sat at a picnic table under a palm tree, having spent 12
hours in a smuggler's open-air boat. Arriving just past midnight, they
spent the rest of the night on mattresses provided by the island's rangers.

They said they were scared they would drown or be caught by authorities
during the journey.

"We prayed for 12 hours, aloud or silent, but we prayed," said Richard
Echevarria, his green T-shirt shirt stiff with sweat and salt spray.
Another boat carrying nine Cubans had arrived two days earlier.

To legally leave Cuba, Cubans must obtain a visa from the country
they're going to visit, plus a letter of invitation from a citizen of
that country. They then must seek an exit visa from the Cuban
government, which isn't always granted. The process can take months.

The Cubans, who couldn't simply fly from the Dominican Republic to the
United States without a U.S. visa, then paid between $1,500 and $2,000
to be taken by boat to Mona. That's at least $12,000 total for one boatload.

Dominican smugglers are turning huge profits in this growing industry,
and few are prosecuted.

"If they hear you speaking with a Cuban accent in Santo Domingo, someone
is going to come up to you and offer to arrange the trip," said Jorge
Bueno, one of the new arrivals.

"It's very lucrative. It's better than trafficking drugs," Bueno
remarked as he donned an orange life vest and settled into the back of a
U.S. Customs boat.

Few migrants of other nationalities plying these seas show up at Mona,
which sits about halfway between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico,
because they know they'll be sent back. Instead, they try to make it all
the way to Puerto Rico's western shores. About 600 have been arrested
since October, most of them Dominicans, Diaz said.

difficult passage

The trip aboard low-slung boats called yolas is hazardous. Many have
died in the often-stormy, 80-mile-wide Mona Passage between the
Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where the Atlantic and the Caribbean
mix.

In November, a federal judge in Puerto Rico sentenced five Dominicans to
prison terms of 10 to 17 years. They were captured after their yola
capsized with 93 Dominican migrants aboard. At least seven drowned.

It was a rare victory over the smugglers. About 80 suspects were
arrested in the Dominican Republic in the first three months of this
year, but nearly all were released for lack of evidence, said Adm.
Delfin Bautista, the commander of a Dominican naval unit that searches
for the yolas.

Migrants hoping to make the voyage again refuse to testify for fear of
being blacklisted by smugglers. Bautista said smugglers are treated
locally as heroes.

As the Customs boat headed back to Puerto Rico, it leaped over 10-foot
swells and smashed into cavernous troughs, drenching the 17 Cubans
aboard in spray. One vomited.

"Imagine if you were out there in one of those yolas," Agent Art Morrell
shouted over the roar of the engine.

Three hours later, the boat docked in Boqueron, southwest Puerto Rico.
Carlos Alvarez, a butcher from Higuey, Cuba, was the first to step off
the boat. The exhausted migrants said they wanted to get to the U.S.
mainland, mostly to Florida, where relatives awaited them.

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