 |
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | September 2007 
A New Wave of Illegal Immigrants From Cuba
 Alfonso Chardy - Miami Herald
go to original
| | Cuban refugees leaving a detention area at the police station in Longboat Key, Fla., in December. About 16,100 undocumented Cubans have arrived in the United States in the last year. "With or without Fidel, things in Cuba are deteriorating," said one migrant who fled the island nation. (Paul Videla/Bradenton Herald) |
Miami - After her 2-year-old was born, Damarys Reyes and her friend Manuel Cabrera talked often about leaving Havana for Miami on a boat. But it was only when an ailing Fidel Castro announced last year that he was "temporarily" ceding power to his younger brother Raul that they made their fateful decision.
"When Fidel made the announcement, it hit me that things were only going to get worse, that it was time to leave," Reyes, 22, said last week during a visit to a migrant assistance office in Miami Springs - nine months after arriving in South Florida with Cabrera and 27 other Cuban migrants.
South Florida migrant-aid offices are suddenly much busier. More Cubans, frustrated by long waiting lists for visas, are arriving illegally aboard boats, buses and planes. Nationally, 16,100 undocumented Cubans have arrived in this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30 - 1,749 more than last year.
The Coast Guard has caught 2,435 Cubans in the Straits of Florida this year, exceeding interdictions for all of 2006.
Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection also disclosed figures showing an overall increase in Cuban migrant arrivals on South Florida shores and at border entry points nationally and at international airports - exceeding arrivals during a similar period last year.
Cubans attempting to reach the United States without visas generally make the voyage by boat, either crossing the Straits of Florida or taking alternate routes, such as through the Mexican resorts of Cancun and Isla Mujeres. Those eventually show up at the Mexico-U.S. border. Many others are arriving in Miami on flights from Europe and South America carrying forged or stolen passports.
Whether Fidel Castro's departure from Cuban affairs on July 31, 2006, has played a role in the spike in migrants remains unclear. The Cuban government says the U.S. government has not honored an agreement to grant 20,000 visas to Cubans annually.
Recently arrived Cubans interviewed at the Catholic Charities Legal Services offices in Miami and Miami Springs said the leadership change in Cuba was a factor - but not the only reason.
"With or without Fidel, things in Cuba are deteriorating," said Cabrera, 34.
A barber by trade, Cabrera said he often sold contraband goods on the streets.
"It was a struggle all the time, just to make enough money to buy the necessities of life, like food," he said while waiting with Reyes and her toddler, Osniel, at the Miami Springs office. The office helps Cubans obtain work permits and green cards.
Cabrera said what propelled him to leave was "harassment" by Havana police who arrested him frequently for selling cigarettes and matches on the streets without a permit.
"They accused me of not having a proper job. They would ask me, 'How do you make a living?,' and I would jokingly answer, 'I live off of the air - my father makes balloons, my mother fills them with air, and I sell them on the street, because there was nothing else in Cuba,' " Cabrera said. He added that a policeman once hit him in the face when he told his balloon joke.
Although the Coast Guard says Cuban migrants are increasingly arriving aboard smugglers' fast boats, Cabrera said his voyage was on a homemade boat that made landfall on Florida's southwest coast, near Naples.
Reyes said she left Osniel behind to make the trip with Cabrera and the others. Osniel was brought by another group of migrants that landed in South Florida a few days ago, she said.
"I wanted to give him a future in a country where there would be opportunities," she said, as she held a sleeping Osniel. "In Cuba, there would not have been a future for him." |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us