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Immigration Issue Threatens GOP's Fla. Stronghold
Cuban Americans Angry Over 'Wet Foot' Policy

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 17, 2006; A03



MIAMI -- On the morning after Christmas, something akin to a miracle happened on the high seas between Miami and Key West, according to an interpretation of the event by U.S. immigration officials. Fifteen Cuban refugees essentially walked on water.

They clambered out of a ramshackle boat as it sank in the deep, dark Florida straits and clung to the rocky remains of an old bridge. Under the "wet foot, dry foot" policy that allows Cubans fleeing communism to reside in the United States only if they somehow reach dry land, the group appeared to have made it to freedom. But in an unusual interpretation of the rule, the Coast Guard said the partially demolished old Seven Mile Bridge no longer touched land, and therefore the 15 had wet feet.

In any other place, the incident might have gone down as just another example of how the Bush administration has gotten tough on immigration. But not here in Miami, home to the million-strong and politically potent Cuban exile community, where many people say the "wet foot, dry foot" rule is ambiguous and unfairly applied. Outraged, South Florida's Cubans are directing their anger squarely at President Bush, who carried Florida largely on the strength of their vote in the last two presidential elections.

At least one influential Cuban, Pepe Hernandez, president of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), said it might be time for the Cubans to do the unthinkable -- reconsider their unwavering loyalty to Republican candidates.

"This community must face the realization that politicians, especially national politicians, come here to Miami when they need our votes and forget their promises," he said. "President Bush came here and said he would review this policy, and nothing has happened. Cuban voters will be looking into this reality a little bit when they cast their votes."

This is not the first time that the Cuban lobby has talked tough about switching its vote, but it caused enough of a scare among Republicans to prompt the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), and Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) to deplore the Coast Guard's decision to dispatch the refugees back to Cuba, and put in calls to the White House.

The White House responded last week by agreeing to meet with a delegation of Cuban lawmakers, lawyers and advocates. A State Department official confirmed that it would participate, along with the departments of Homeland Security and Justice.

At the same time, U.S. attorneys are fighting a lawsuit filed by relatives of the 15 deportees against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard. A federal judge who is presiding over the case expressed disbelief at the government's argument that the old Seven Mile Bridge is not part of American soil, but also said the issue may be moot, because the 15 Cubans were sent home and are no longer under the jurisdiction of the court.

U.S. District Court Judge Federico A. Moreno said on Wednesday that he will make a decision on the case at the end of the month.

These events come as the immigration issue is taking center stage in the American political debate. Next month, the Senate is expected to begin debating various immigration bills that would allow foreign nationals to work temporarily in the United States under strict conditions. At the same time, many Republicans, as well as Democrats, are pressing for a harder line toward illegal immigrants.

Cubans say they have a special status as exiles from the only communist nation in the Western Hemisphere and as a conservative bloc of voters who helped Republicans maintain a political majority in Washington.

Hernandez said his organization understands that the United States cannot have 35,000 Cubans entering the country each year, as in 1994, when the Clinton administration decided to implement the "wet foot, dry foot" policy. It allows Cubans into the country if they step on land but sends them home, where they would likely face persecution, if the Coast Guard intercepts their boats at sea.

But, Hernandez said, the Coast Guard has gotten more aggressive in policing the border. Cubans have watched in horror as Coast Guard workers tackled Cubans like linebackers when they leapt from boats and made a dash from surf to sand.

Cubans have also been shocked by television footage of Coast Guard cutters bumping rickety handmade craft as refugees wafted toward land, sometimes causing people to tumble out of boats and drown.

Last year, about 2,500 Cubans made it to land, and about 2,800 were captured at sea, according to the Coast Guard.

Still, there has never been anything like the event on Dec. 26, when, in the 4 a.m. darkness, a group of Cubans miraculously bumped into a bridge just as their boat was sinking. Elizabeth Hernandez, 22, who was on the boat with her 2-year-old son, Michael Junior Blanco, had a cell phone.

Around 4:30, Mercedes Hernandez Guerrero picked up her phone in Miami and heard her cousin's voice.

"She was asking for help," Guerrero said. "Their boat was sinking. I told them to stay there. I thought I was helping them. I thought about going out there with a rope."

Guerrero called Ramon Saul Sanchez, the leader of the Democracy Movement, who wanted to help but first asked if the group was part of a smuggling operation. Assured that they were not, Sanchez organized a rescue group and set out on a two-hour drive to their location near Key West.

But the Coast Guard got there first. A Coast Guard cutter spotted the group, plucked them off the bridge and began to process them for repatriation or deportation to a third-party country. About 97 percent of Cubans intercepted at sea are sent home, but 3 percent are accepted by other host countries such as Costa Rica, according to the Cuban American National Foundation, citing Coast Guard and immigration records.

Sanchez organized a demonstration at the gates of the local Coast Guard station and lawyers prepared a lawsuit, arguing that the bridge is part of the United States and is therefore land. Within a few days, the 15 were rushed to Cuba, before the case could go to court.

That is when Sanchez started his hunger strike, and when the governor called the White House, and other politicians got involved. Sanchez's Democracy Movement, whose aggressive philosophy has often collided with that of CANF, united with all Cuban groups.

"Cuba is the most crucial issue that motivates us," Sanchez said. "Each family has been divided."

That includes the families of Guerrero and Mariela Conesa, both of whom are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Guerrero said that her cousin, also a plaintiff, lost her job and her home in Cuba for attempting the trip.

"They must leave," she said, speaking in Spanish. "Today they called them to the Immigration Department for an interview. They will pressure them. They become outcasts. They have no choice but to try to leave again."

The very idea sent shivers down Guerrero's spine as she recalled her own flight from Cuba in a boat, in the dark, 14 years ago.

"It was a very difficult thing," she said, tearing. "I came with my 2-year-old son. I would not want anyone to do that. It's not only the cold; you feel death very close, and even more so when you bring children."

Sanchez made the trip when he was 16, and said he was willing to die of hunger to make the voyage safer for others. He said he wants the committee to ask the Coast Guard to halt its tactics of bumping boats and tackling refugees.

"They are victims in this, too," Sanchez said of the Coast Guard. "They are forced to enforce this inhumane policy."