Another country with enough guts to deal with migrants by deporting them. I like the excuse of the Cubans being treated harshly when they return as many who come to Miami claim to have made numerous attempts some 5 or 7. I guess that harsh treatment isn't that harsh after all. The Cayman Islands are smart and don't want to become controlled by Cubans like third world Miami.

http://www.miamiherald.com/884/story/92082.html

CAYMAN ISLANDS
Caymans crack down on Cubans
Cuban migrants who get stranded in the Caymans face detention -- or being sent back.
BY SHURNA ROBBINS
Special to The Miami Herald

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands -- One Cuban inmate picked the lock at the Fairbanks Detention Centre, then he and 35 other Cubans went outside to stage one of the oddest protests in this Caribbean territory.

Marching down the streets of George Town, the world's fifth-largest banking center, the Cuban men and women shouted, ''No Cuba. No Castro.'' Police then rounded them up peacefully and returned them to detention.

The April protest was the latest chapter in the saga of hundreds of Cuban boat people who leave their island, bound mostly for Honduras, but are stranded in the Cayman Islands, about 125 miles south of Cuba, when their boats break down.

Under policies tightened in early 2005, authorities in this three-island British territory have detained and sent back about 300 Cubans, according to official figures. The last time any Cubans were granted asylum was in 1994, when only 20 won asylum after about 1,200 arrived during the balsero crisis, a major exodus of Cuban rafters.

The Cubans now being held here complain that they are caught in a legal maze in which they find it difficult to obtain lawyers to handle their asylum requests, and they say that Cayman authorities give them little opportunity to prove their cases and even discourage them from asking for asylum applications.

Although the Cayman Islands have had an agreement with Cuba since 1999 to return Cubans who arrive here illegally, enforcement was lax for many years. It was common for local officials and residents to help the Cubans with boat repairs, fuel, food and water and send them on their way.

STRICT POLICY

But in January 2005, after hundreds of Cubans had arrived during the previous two years, the government enacted a strict policy that prevents authorities from giving any aid whatsoever and strictly enforces the repatriation agreement.

Cayman's chief immigration officer, Franz Manderson, has repeatedly stated that the government is careful to abide by U.N. refugee conventions, which require an opportunity to apply for political asylum. And while he acknowledges that it is natural for Cayman residents to help the Cubans on humanitarian grounds, he remains adamant that the Cayman Islands should not be seen to support illegal migration.

''If we assist people to enter other countries illegally, we run the risk of those countries branding us as supporters of illegal migration or perhaps even accusing us of assisting in the smuggling of migrants,'' Manderson said.

But human-rights activist Gordon Barlow said that forcing authorities to allow Cuban boat people to sail on without proper supplies is ``inhumane and unjustified. . . . This is particularly shameful in a British colony with a long and honorable seafaring history.''

Currently, 50 Cubans are detained here, 48 of them at the Fairbanks center, all but nine of them men. Two men are being held at the central police station, one because he was caught with a smuggled cellphone and the other for repeated escape attempts.

For years, authorities have denied journalists permission to interview detained Cubans. But after the embarrassing street protest, Manderson allowed reporters into the detention center for an extended news conference with the Cubans.

Among the group are army veterans, mechanics, butchers, farmers, laborers and homemakers. Most have young children back in Cuba, left in the care of grandmothers and spouses with the hope of reuniting once the migrants have made their way overland from Honduras to the United States.

Dairon García Chávez said he is a former policeman who used to break up political demonstrations. Jorge Paracio said he faced prison time because he ran an illegal lottery and got into a fight that landed him in a hospital.

But most of them said they simply wanted freedom from Cuba's communist regime and a chance at a better life.

''Almost everything in life is illegal [in Cuba]; buying something like . . . a car is illegal,'' said Damien Estrada Dominguez, a cook from the southeastern city of Bayamo who has a wife and two daughters back in Cuba. ``Nobody can move anyplace. Nobody can speak with freedom.''

Fairbanks is a low-security complex next door to a women's prison. Men and women sleep in bunk beds jammed into the same concrete barracks. Industrial fans keep the oppressive humid air moving through the room, and the exercise yard outside is desolate.

UNTENABLE CHOICE

The Cubans face a Hobson's choice when it comes to applying for asylum here, with many fearing that if they apply for asylum and then get deported, they will be treated more harshly in Cuba.

Joaquín González Pérez, who said he was stranded here on his third attempt in five months to reach Honduras, said it is easier to accept deportation and make another run later.

At least 380 Cuban boat people arrived in Honduras in the first half of last year, compared with 179 in all of 2005. They usually go on by land to the U.S.-Mexico border and benefit from the wet-foot/dry-foot policy upon stepping on U.S. soil.

But those who want to apply for asylum in the Cayman Islands face other problems.

''People here want a lawyer, but nobody here knows how to get one,'' said Francisco Reyes Benitez.

Only a handful have been able to get in touch with U.S. relatives or friends, who have little choice but to pick a lawyer at random out of the local phone book. In a territory with hundreds of lawyers specialized in offshore financing, it is difficult to find the few who have some expertise in asylum cases. Fewer still speak Spanish.

Although they have no legal counsel, two men have applied for asylum through immigration officers who speak Spanish. Reyes Benitez and Emilton Castillo claim to be members of a little-known dissident group in Bayamo.

Castillo, 33, with a young wife and 1-year-old son in Cuba, said he does not hold much hope of being granted asylum.

An immigration officer abruptly cut short his interview, he said, after he answered yes when asked if he had been convicted of any crimes. He was not allowed to explain that he spent three years in prison for trying to intervene with police who were arresting a mentally ill person -- something he considers a political, not criminal, issue.

Benitez, a mechanic, said he worked for seven years as a human-rights activist, writing reports on abuses and telephoning them to the U.S. government's Radio Martí. He is also not sure where his application stands.

''This is a Christian land,'' he said. ``I don't understand why this government has made a contract with the Cuban dictatorship.''

Castillo believes that he will be sentenced to four years in prison if he is returned to Cuba. Benitez said that because he was a leader of a dissident group, he will more likely get a much harsher punishment.