A new wave of illegal immigrants from Cuba
By Alfonso Chardy
Miami Herald
MIAMI - After her 2-year-old was born, Damarys Reyes and her friend
Manuel Cabrera talked often about leaving Havana for Miami on a boat.
But it was only when an ailing Fidel Castro announced last year that he
was "temporarily" ceding power to his younger brother Raul that they
made their fateful decision.
"When Fidel made the announcement, it hit me that things were only going
to get worse, that it was time to leave," Reyes, 22, said last week
during a visit to a migrant assistance office in Miami Springs - nine
months after arriving in South Florida with Cabrera and 27 other Cuban
migrants.
South Florida migrant-aid offices are suddenly much busier. More Cubans,
frustrated by long waiting lists for visas, are arriving illegally
aboard boats, buses and planes. Nationally, 16,100 undocumented Cubans
have arrived in this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30 - 1,749 more than
last year.
The Coast Guard has caught 2,435 Cubans in the Straits of Florida this
year, exceeding interdictions for all of 2006.
Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection also disclosed figures
showing an overall increase in Cuban migrant arrivals on South Florida
shores and at border entry points nationally and at international
airports - exceeding arrivals during a similar period last year.
Cubans attempting to reach the United States without visas generally
make the voyage by boat, either crossing the Straits of Florida or
taking alternate routes, such as through the Mexican resorts of Cancun
and Isla Mujeres. Those eventually show up at the Mexico-U.S. border.
Many others are arriving in Miami on flights from Europe and South
America carrying forged or stolen passports.
Whether Fidel Castro's departure from Cuban affairs on July 31, 2006,
has played a role in the spike in migrants remains unclear. The Cuban
government says the U.S. government has not honored an agreement to
grant 20,000 visas to Cubans annually.
Recently arrived Cubans interviewed at the Catholic Charities Legal
Services offices in Miami and Miami Springs said the leadership change
in Cuba was a factor - but not the only reason.
"With or without Fidel, things in Cuba are deteriorating," said Cabrera, 34.
A barber by trade, Cabrera said he often sold contraband goods on the
streets.
"It was a struggle all the time, just to make enough money to buy the
necessities of life, like food," he said while waiting with Reyes and
her toddler, Osniel, at the Miami Springs office. The office helps
Cubans obtain work permits and green cards.
Cabrera said what propelled him to leave was "harassment" by Havana
police who arrested him frequently for selling cigarettes and matches on
the streets without a permit.
"They accused me of not having a proper job. They would ask me, 'How do
you make a living?,' and I would jokingly answer, 'I live off of the air
- my father makes balloons, my mother fills them with air, and I sell
them on the street, because there was nothing else in Cuba,' " Cabrera
said. He added that a policeman once hit him in the face when he told
his balloon joke.
Although the Coast Guard says Cuban migrants are increasingly arriving
aboard smugglers' fast boats, Cabrera said his voyage was on a homemade
boat that made landfall on Florida's southwest coast, near Naples.
Reyes said she left Osniel behind to make the trip with Cabrera and the
others. Osniel was brought by another group of migrants that landed in
South Florida a few days ago, she said.
"I wanted to give him a future in a country where there would be
opportunities," she said, as she held a sleeping Osniel. "In Cuba, there
would not have been a future for him."
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