With Cuba, 'policy' a misnomer
By Dan Moffett
Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer
Sunday, January 15, 2006
You don't need me to tell you that we're a nation of laws. But you might need me to help explain some of them that deal with immigration.
Take the very complicated situation in the Florida Keys last week.
By Dan Moffett
Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer
Sunday, January 15, 2006
You don't need me to tell you that we're a nation of laws. But you might need me to help explain some of them that deal with immigration.
Take the very complicated situation in the Florida Keys last week.
A homemade boat carrying 15 Cubans landed on one of the concrete pilings that supports the abandoned Old Seven Mile Bridge, which runs parallel to the new Seven Mile Bridge. Their boat was sinking, but the Cubans were jubilant because they believed that they had reached the United States and asylum.
The U.S. policy on migrants from Cuba, as you recall, is something called "wet foot, dry foot." Cubans who come into physical contact with U.S. soil are allowed to stay; those who are caught at sea are sent back. So, it's extremely important to get a foothold on dry land.
You might also recall the scene captured on live television seven years ago when Cuban rafters desperately tried to make it to shore at Surfside in north Miami-Dade. The U.S. Coast Guard shot water cannons and pepper spray to turn them back. The most surreal moments came when one of the Cubans ran through the surf and tried to fake out police like a halfback trying to cross the goal line. Ricky Williams never ran for stakes so high.
But back to the Old Seven Mile Bridge. The 15 Cubans perched on the concrete support figured they had 30 dry feet and were here to stay.
We are also a nation of technicalities. It turns out that the Coast Guard does not consider the Old Seven Mile Bridge a bridge. A Coast Guard spokesman called it "a misnomer."
No one knows if refugees from anywhere had ever tried coming here before by landing on a misnomer. Government officials weren't even sure whether it was possible to have dry feet on a misnomer. Let's face it: The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, not Plymouth Misnomer.
You can imagine the predicament federal officials were in. They ultimately ruled that concrete pilings under the misnomer would count as U.S. terra firma only if they are connected to the mainland by a structural span, which this one wasn't. These are details they don't tell you when you're building a boat out of scrap materials in Mantanzas.
The government's position is that there are right pilings and wrong pilings and the Cubans had landed on the latter. A nation that cared about giving oppressed people safe haven would mark its pilings accordingly. Otherwise, it's like asking rafters to play Monopoly on a blank board.
Had the boat drifted a little to the east or west, had the government labeled its pilings, the Cubans would be lunching in Little Havana today. But we are a nation of laws, so the government deported them back to Cuba.
Cuban-Americans lashed out at the Republican administration they had helped put in power. The exile vote decided the close call that gave George Bush the presidency in 2000. The thinking was that the administration owed the Cuban community a whole bunch of close calls. What's a couple pilings between friends, anyway?
The answer is that we are a nation of laws when we're not a nation of self-serving politics. Mr. Bush is more worried about the immigration hard-liners in Congress than the exiles in Florida.
The administration wanted to tell Cuban-Americans to count their blessings but, of course, did not. Haitian rafters could have landed on any piling and been deported the same day. A Mexican caught on a piling would be detained, vilified, released, then given an awful job with terrible pay.
It might have been a different story if any of the Cubans were talented at baseball. The government has shown extraordinary leniency and creativity to give players asylum on humanitarian grounds (i.e., good fastball, slider and change).
But even baseball isn't the automatic-in that it used to be. Last month, the Treasury Department announced that it would deny the Cuban national team permission to compete in the World Baseball Classic, which will be held in several states this March. In other years, the government would have seen the event as a fine opportunity to recruit defectors for both leagues.
But the administration's rationale was that, back in Havana, Fidel Castro might find some way to derive economic benefit from the team's appearance. That would violate U.S. law.
You see, besides being a nation of laws, technicalities and self-serving politics, when it comes to Cuba, we're a nation of fantasies, too.
The U.S. policy on migrants from Cuba, as you recall, is something called "wet foot, dry foot." Cubans who come into physical contact with U.S. soil are allowed to stay; those who are caught at sea are sent back. So, it's extremely important to get a foothold on dry land.
You might also recall the scene captured on live television seven years ago when Cuban rafters desperately tried to make it to shore at Surfside in north Miami-Dade. The U.S. Coast Guard shot water cannons and pepper spray to turn them back. The most surreal moments came when one of the Cubans ran through the surf and tried to fake out police like a halfback trying to cross the goal line. Ricky Williams never ran for stakes so high.
But back to the Old Seven Mile Bridge. The 15 Cubans perched on the concrete support figured they had 30 dry feet and were here to stay.
We are also a nation of technicalities. It turns out that the Coast Guard does not consider the Old Seven Mile Bridge a bridge. A Coast Guard spokesman called it "a misnomer."
No one knows if refugees from anywhere had ever tried coming here before by landing on a misnomer. Government officials weren't even sure whether it was possible to have dry feet on a misnomer. Let's face it: The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, not Plymouth Misnomer.
You can imagine the predicament federal officials were in. They ultimately ruled that concrete pilings under the misnomer would count as U.S. terra firma only if they are connected to the mainland by a structural span, which this one wasn't. These are details they don't tell you when you're building a boat out of scrap materials in Mantanzas.
The government's position is that there are right pilings and wrong pilings and the Cubans had landed on the latter. A nation that cared about giving oppressed people safe haven would mark its pilings accordingly. Otherwise, it's like asking rafters to play Monopoly on a blank board.
Had the boat drifted a little to the east or west, had the government labeled its pilings, the Cubans would be lunching in Little Havana today. But we are a nation of laws, so the government deported them back to Cuba.
Cuban-Americans lashed out at the Republican administration they had helped put in power. The exile vote decided the close call that gave George Bush the presidency in 2000. The thinking was that the administration owed the Cuban community a whole bunch of close calls. What's a couple pilings between friends, anyway?
The answer is that we are a nation of laws when we're not a nation of self-serving politics. Mr. Bush is more worried about the immigration hard-liners in Congress than the exiles in Florida.
The administration wanted to tell Cuban-Americans to count their blessings but, of course, did not. Haitian rafters could have landed on any piling and been deported the same day. A Mexican caught on a piling would be detained, vilified, released, then given an awful job with terrible pay.
It might have been a different story if any of the Cubans were talented at baseball. The government has shown extraordinary leniency and creativity to give players asylum on humanitarian grounds (i.e., good fastball, slider and change).
But even baseball isn't the automatic-in that it used to be. Last month, the Treasury Department announced that it would deny the Cuban national team permission to compete in the World Baseball Classic, which will be held in several states this March. In other years, the government would have seen the event as a fine opportunity to recruit defectors for both leagues.
But the administration's rationale was that, back in Havana, Fidel Castro might find some way to derive economic benefit from the team's appearance. That would violate U.S. law.
You see, besides being a nation of laws, technicalities and self-serving politics, when it comes to Cuba, we're a nation of fantasies, too.
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