Thread: Some Cuban exiles fearful of deportation

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ne ... 184886.htm

Posted on Thu, Aug. 03, 2006


IMMIGRATION
Some exiles fearful of deportation
Some exiled Cubans convicted of crimes are afraid that a turnover in Cuba may trigger orders for their deportation.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com

When Miami Cuban exile David Sebastian heard Fidel Castro ceded power, joy and fear gripped him. He was happy for the future of his country, but alarmed about his own future.

''I was very concerned for myself,'' Sebastian, 40, told The Miami Herald. 'My [17-year-old] daughter took me aside and said, `Daddy, what does this mean to you?' and then she started crying.''

Sebastian, convicted in the 1990s on charges of selling stolen marine equipment, is among the more than 29,000 Cuban exiles who may have no choice but to return to Cuba if there's a leadership change and democracy reigns on the island.

The vast majority are criminal convicts who under laws approved by Congress in 1996 are subject to deportation.

Removals have been put on hold because Cuba refuses to take back those exiles, and the United States has not pushed the issue in years.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement provided statistics Wednesday showing there are 29,079 Cuban nationals with final deportation orders, most under supervised release and some in custody.

U.S. officials and some immigration experts believe it's premature to speculate about deportations.

''Even if change came to Cuba, we don't know if the policy about not taking back people with final orders will change,'' said Miami immigration attorney Ira Kurzban, considered an authority on national immigration law.

Linda Osberg-Braun, another South Florida immigration attorney whose clients include prominent Cuban nationals with final deportation orders, said she doubted removals would occur anytime soon.

''I don't think Raúl will change the dictatorship of Cuba, and Cuba will continue to be an oppressive dictatorship,'' Osberg-Braun said. ``Therefore, I do not believe relations will change or that we will develop a repatriation agreement with Cuba.''

There's nothing in immigration law spelling out what conditions must exist in Cuba to begin deportations. A clue to a possible trigger is contained in 1996 laws requiring mandatory deportations of foreign nationals convicted of aggravated felonies.

A fact sheet on the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services -- www.us cis.gov -- says a provision included in the 1996 law calls for the ``conditional repeal of the Cuban Adjustment Act upon the establishment of democracy in Cuba.''

The Cuban Adjustment Act is a 1966 law that allows Cubans to apply for permanent residence one year after arriving in the country.

Though democracy is still far from reality in Cuba, that doesn't mean exiles with final removal orders aren't worried.

'The minute I heard, I thought, `What's going to happen to me now?,' '' said Sebastian, a paralegal in a Coral Gables immigration attorney's office. ``The same thought likely crossed the minds of thousands of other Cuban exiles in the same situation.''

Sebastian says his criminal conviction should be irrelevant because it happened after he became a citizen, thus shielding him from deportation. But immigration authorities insist he is not a citizen because he missed two naturalization ceremonies, and the courts have agreed -- though the reason he didn't show up was because notifications went to the wrong address. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in April.

Luis Enrique Daniel Rodríguez, a former Cuban state security official suspected of persecuting Cuban dissidents, also has a final deportation order. Rodríguez was put on supervised release last year. He could not be reached for comment but his attorney, Leonardo Viota Sesin, said Wednesday that his client ``likely is concerned.''

A significant number of exiles with final deportation orders -- 10,386 -- arrived during the 1980 Mariel boatlift.

Hundreds of Mariel convicts were in custody awaiting removal, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against indefinite detention. The majority of those convicts -- more than 700 -- were released last year.

Another category of Mariel detainees is on a dwindling list of 2,700-plus that the Cuban government agreed to take back in negotiations with the Reagan administration in the 1980s. More than 1,700 have been deported, but about 1,000 remain on the list.

ICE statistics show that 18,693 non-Mariel Cubans have final deportation orders -- with 235 in custody.

Among prominent Cuban exiles who could be deported is Jorge de Cárdenas -- once a powerful lobbyist and political strategist convicted in the 1990s in connection with a Miami corruption scandal.

Reached at his office Wednesday, de Cárdenas indicated he was not too concerned. His nephew, Jorge Felipe de Cárdenas Agostini, also faces deportation.

Immigration agents detained him in 2004 on suspicion of supervising a team of torturers who targeted anti-Castro dissidents while working for the Cuban Ministry of the Interior.

De Cárdenas Agostini's attorney, Osberg-Braun, denied the allegations and said her client was persecuted by the Castro regime.

Friends said it was because of his association with Lt. Col. Antonio de la Guardia, executed after drug-trafficking trials in Havana. De la Guardia and Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa were executed in 1989. Some Cuban affairs experts believe the executions amounted to a purge of officers who threatened Castro's rule.

De Cárdenas Agostini testified during the deportation trial against his uncle. It was then that he allegedly made statements that immigration officials later used to trigger a deportation order in his case. De Cárdenas Agostini was released last year, also under supervised conditions.

Reckon we could send Cuba those 40,000 Chinese illegals that ICE let roam around our Country?