Thread: Activists urge tighter control of borders

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Activists urge tighter control of borders
By Julio Ochoa

Monday, November 13, 2006

The recent influx of Cuban immigrants to Southwest Florida's shores underscores the need for tighter borders along the coast, local activists said today.

"We don't have the proper personnel in place to combat this invasion," said Russell Landry, president of Citizens Against Illegal Aliens, a Fort Myers-based anti-illegal immigration group.

The Coast Guard needs more resources to patrol hundreds of miles of coast line in Southwest Florida because word is spreading that it is easy to infiltrate the area's porous borders, Landry said.

And once construction on a fence at the Mexican/American border is complete, more illegal immigrants will turn to Florida, he said.

"We're gonna start to see it here come here to our coastal waters and on land where barrier islands are most accessible," Landry said. "We're going to start to see a need for land border patrol agents here."

The United States government should also reconsider it's immigration policy for Cubans, said Tony Maida, co-founder of Americans Standing Tall, a Cape Coral-based anti illegal immigration group.

The so-called "wet foot, dry foot," policy gives Cuban immigrants amnesty if they make it to dry land but sends them back to Cuba if they are caught on the water.

"I think its a wrong policy because these people enter our country illegally," said Miada said. "If that applies to Cubans then are we being discriminatory to the rest of the illegal aliens from around the word? They should have the same policy across the board for everybody or nothing."

© 2006 Naples Daily News and NDN Productions. Published in Naples, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co.

We lost the war with Cuba. Kennedy failed to stay the course.