Cuban coast guardsmen who defected released

MIAMI -- Four Cuban coast guardsmen who arrived in Key West under the cover of darkness earlier this month have passed initial U.S. law enforcement scrutiny and are now free to pursue new lives in the United States.

The men have been assigned to a migrant relocation program financed by the U.S. government and run by the U.S. Catholic Conference, said Tania Medina, processing manager of the Cuban-Haitian Program in Miami.

Within two weeks, all the necessary immigration paperwork should be complete; and they will be sent to one of nine U.S. cities outside of Florida to begin their new lives, Medina said.

The Cubans, who left the communist island Feb. 6 aboard a government-owned patrol boat, were released Friday after being held for questioning by U.S. law enforcement agents, U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Keith A. Roberts said Monday.

In an interview with the Miami Herald published Monday, the guardsmen said they had been planning their defection for seven months and concocted a story to mislead Cuban radar operators as they left territorial waters.

"We spent seven months preparing this," Edgar Raul Batista Gamboa, 30, told the newspaper. "It seemed we were condemned to remain back there."

The Cubans initially told police in Key West that their decision to come to the United States was made at the last minute.

Batista said they decided to leave on a night when Cuban leader Fidel Castro was making a speech at Havana's Karl Marx Theater. The guardsmen radioed headquarters, saying they were chasing an intruder near the theater. They knew the radar operators wouldn't be able to tell whether the blip they were watching was one boat or two.

The Cubans reached the dock of a Key West resort before dawn Feb. 7 and walked into town, still dressed in their military fatigues and carrying weapons. They surrendered to a Key West police officer and were turned over to the Border Patrol.

In addition to Batista, a lieutenant and an 11-year veteran of the Cuban border guard, the Herald identified the other guardsmen as Ofil Lara Corria, 31; Yoandri Rodriguez Tamayo, 20; and Rodisan Segura Lopez, 19.

Without someone to sponsor their stay in the United States, Cuban and Haitian migrants who are accepted into the Catholic Conference's relocation program are sent to cities where employment opportunities are better than in South Florida, said Raul Hernandez, assistant director of the Cuban-Haitian relocation program. The organization gets them an entry level job, housing and English lessons.The immigrants may relocate to Las Vegas; Albuquerque; Phoenix; Louisville, Ky.; Rochester, N.Y.; Lafayette, La.; Austin, Texas; or Houston. The guardsmen have not yet specified which city they prefer, Medina said.

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