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Migrants plead for U.S. help

They reached a bridge, were sent back to Cuba, then given U.S. visas. And they wait ... and wait.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published October 3, 2006

HAVANA - A group of Cuban migrants sent home in January after reaching an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys expressed frustration Monday that their own government has not given them approval to leave more than six months after they received U.S. visas to emigrate.

Growing more desperate as the months pass, the 14 migrants met with U.S. officials, who said they would investigate the matter.

"Right now we're looking very carefully at this case," said John Wallace Bird, who oversees U.S. citizenship and migration services for the American mission in Havana. "We're concerned it's taking so long for them to receive permission to leave the country."

Bird said U.S.-Cuba migration accords prohibit the island's government from punishing Cuban migrants that are returned home.

The Cuban government has never publicly commented on the details of the case, but frequently criticizes the U.S. government's migration policy for Cubans, saying it encourages them to undertake risky sea voyages with the hope of obtaining American residency.

Under the United States' "wet-foot-dry-foot" policy, most Cubans who reach U.S. soil are allowed to remain and seek American residency, while those intercepted at sea are generally sent home.

Those in the recent case left Cuba without government permission in January, reaching an old bridge in the Florida Keys.

The U.S. Coast Guard sent them back to Cuba after deciding the bridge did not qualify as dry land because parts were missing and it was no longer connected to U.S. soil. That created an uproar in South Florida's Cuban exile community.

A deal allowing the migrants to emigrate permanently was reached in March between U.S. District Judge Frederic Moreno in Miami and the U.S. government, which initially argued that the Coast Guard acted correctly.

Soon afterward, the U.S. government granted humanitarian visas for the 14 migrants, refusing a visa to a 15th member of the group, reportedly for giving false statements to U.S. authorities.

They then applied for the so-called "white card," an exit permit Cubans must receive from the communist government to leave the island. They have since quit their jobs as instructed by Cuban authorities in preparation to leave for the United States.

"We are in a situation that's dragging on," migrant Alexis Gonzalez Blanco said, adding that "we don't have money."

[Last modified October 3, 2006, 01:04:00]