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Bridge isn't far enough for Cubans

A group of 15 is sent back to the island after landing under a bridge last week in the Keys.

By DAVID ADAMS
Published January 10, 2006

MIAMI - It used to be that anyone fleeing Cuba who arrived on the Florida coast with dry feet was home free.

Not anymore, at least in the bizarre case of 15 Cuban migrants who were found clinging to a bridge piling in the Florida Keys last week.

The group, including three small children, was repatriated by the Coast Guard Monday after the Department of Homeland Security ruled the historic bridge - part of the old, disused Overseas Highway - was not U.S. territory.

But Miami relatives of the migrants and their lawyers are crying foul, saying the Bush administration acted with undue haste in sending them back to the communist island.

"They were improperly sent back to Cuba," said William Sanchez, a Miami immigration attorney who until last month worked for the Bush administration on immigration issues at the Department of Justice. "They stood under that bridge for several hours with their feet very dry. They should have been considered to have touched U.S. soil."

The case threatens to reopen a thorny debate over Washington's controversial "wet foot/dry foot" immigration policy toward Cubans fleeing the island. Under the policy, Cubans who make it to U.S. soil (dry foot) are allowed to stay, while those intercepted at sea (wet foot) are sent back.

A spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard said the migrants were picked up at 7:30 a.m. Thursday on a section of the old Seven Mile Bridge that is no longer connected to land. Even though their feet were dry, they were not covered by the law.

"If they are on an artificial structure and can't walk to land they are considered "feet wet,"' said Petty Officer Dana Warr, pointing out that several spans of the old bridge are missing.

Had they been picked up on pilings under the adjacent new bridge, he said their fate would have been different. "It's not our policy," he added, pointing out that the directive comes from Washington.

Built in the 1930s, the old bridge fell into disuse after the new bridge opened in 1982. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is now mostly used as a fishing pier.

At a news conference, relatives of the 15 said they were alerted soon after 6 a.m. by phone calls from members of the group who had brought a cell phone with them. Mercedes Hernandez, 42, got a call from her niece telling her the group had arrived but had run into trouble. "She said, "We're here, we're here, but we're under a bridge and the boat got away,"' she recounted.

Another relative, Marisela Coneso, was too upset to speak to reporters. Trembling and in tears, all she could do was hold a photo of her husband and their son. An attorney explained the couple hadn't seen each other since Coneso left Cuba seven years ago, also by boat.

The group set off from Matanzas on Cuba's north coast late at night on Jan. 2 aboard a "rustic boat," according to the relatives. Close to the Keys, the engine ran out of gas. They were forced to row. When they arrived at the bridge they tried to tether the boat, but it was dragged under by the current. By the time relatives drove to the scene from Miami the group had already been picked up by the Coast Guard and transferred to a cutter at sea.

In a sign of growing exile frustration and unity over the issue, several Cuban-American members of Congress, all Republican, joined Democrats to blast the policy.

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., said the incident "shows the complete and utter failure of the wet foot/dry foot policy." Highlighting the apparent absurdity of the official explanation of what makes a bridge U.S. soil, he wrote: "The semantics used to return these men and women ... are an embarrassment."

Many Cuban exiles say current policy lacks sense because it rewards would-be refugees more on the basis of luck and ingenuity, than legitimate grounds of political persecution. In recent years it has also encouraged an illegal smuggling industry of boat captains who are paid to get migrants ashore.

One Cuban exile leader, Ramon Sanchez, lay down on a bed outside the Miami Beach Coast Guard Station on Saturday, announcing he was going on a hunger strike to demand a change in policy. Sanchez, 52, is a veteran exile activist who helped rally Miami's Cuban community against the Clinton administration during the bitter custody battle over the rafter boy Elian Gonzalez.

"I just decided it's either their freedom or my life," he said, shortly before news came that the 15 had already been repatriated.

Dejected and badly sunburned, Sanchez later moved his protest to Miami's historic downtown Freedom Tower, where exiles fleeing Cuba were given shelter in the 1960s. He vowed to continue his hunger strike anyway, "until the president is willing to listen to us."

Lawyers for the group also refused to give up hope, saying they planned to ask a judge to order the 15 be brought back from Cuba.

"When is a bridge part of the United States?" said one of the attorneys, Wilfredo Allen. "We want the ability to argue that in court."

[Last modified January 15, 2006, 10:24:15]