After flight, Cubans await release

MIAMI -- Eight Cubans who flew to Florida aboard a crop-duster were being processed by U.S. immigration officials late Tuesday in preparation for their release.

The yellow biplane, equipped with only two seats, landed Monday at Key West International Airport, escorted in by two Florida National Guard fighters.

The adults among the eight were interviewed by immigration officials throughout the day. The pilot and three other men were being held at the Krome Detention Center in Miami-Dade County, while the three women and a 2-year-old girl were staying at a hotel, said Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez.

"Everyone is still in detention, and they're being processed," Gonzalez said. She said INS policy barred specifying the time of their release.

Gina Bispham, clinical supervisor at the state Refugee Health Assessment Program, said she was told by INS officials that the Cubans would not be brought in for a medical exam, the last step before release, until today.

Cuban refugees are typically released into the community after the brief INS processing and the health examination.

The Cuban government identified the pilot as Capt. Instructor Nemencio Carlos Alonso Guerra. Friends and relatives said the 48-year-old worked for Cubana de Aviacion at a crop-dusting airstrip in the western province of Pinar del Rio.

Family members who were left behind in the provincial capital of the same name were reclusive Tuesday, tired of reporters, Cuban security officials and the town buzz. For much of the day, they kept away from their apartment.

"It's horrible what we've been going through. It's a huge burden and a lot of pressure," said Carlos Luis Alonso, the pilot's brother, before shutting the door to reporters in the afternoon.

He said the family had been visited by Cuban security officials.

Inside were the wife Alonso left behind, Magdalena Naranjo Morales, and a teenage daughter whose name was unavailable.

Relatives said Alonso took with him his son Carlos Isobel Alonso, 28; the son's wife, Mairiliam Orama; their 2-year-old daughter, Bruni Alonso Orama; Mairiliam's sister Marifleidys Orama; and her husband, Aldo Gutierrez. The identities of two other passengers, a man and a woman, were not known.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry described the flight aboard the government-owned plane as air piracy and demanded that the United States immediately return the people and the plane.

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