Cuban-Americans may hold GOP accountable for sending 15 back

Cuban-Americans may hold GOP accountable for sending 15 back
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
Associated Press

January 11, 2006, 1:00 PM EST

MIAMI -- When 15 Cubans fleeing their homeland landed on an abandoned bridge
in the Florida Keys, they inadvertently found themselves in an uncomfortable
legal spotlight -- one the Republican Party is sharing.

The plight of the immigrants -- deported Monday back to Cuba -- has reopened
the bitter debate over the government's immigration policy and angered South
Florida's heavily Republican Cuban exile community.

"This will have an effect of reducing the numbers of Cuban-American voters
that would blindly follow a Republican candidate," Cuban American National
Foundation President Pepe Hernandez said. "Cubans are going to realize that
both parties come when they need us but tend to forget our pledges when they
don't."

The migrants were returned after the government concluded that the partially
collapsed bridge they landed on -- which no longer connects to any of the
Keys -- did not count as dry land.

Under the current "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach U.S. soil
are allowed to remain in the United States. Those stopped at sea are sent
home.

Coming on the heels of more stringent deportation policies for Cuban
migrants, and amid a wave of GOP calls for tighter immigration enforcement,
some community leaders wondered whether the deportation will cost the party
support among one of its staunchest bases.

"It was a total abuse, how all these Cubans were treated. They landed on our
territory only so that we can send them back to hell," said Armando de
Cristo, a city employee, 66, who fled Cuba 30 years ago.

Lawyers for relatives of the repatriated Cubans filed suit in U.S. District
Court Tuesday, requesting a federal judge allow them to return to the United
States and issue a legal definition of "U.S. territory" in connection with
the wet-foot, dry-foot policy.

Florida Congressional representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln
Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, all Cuban-American Republicans, urged the
White House to support a review of the policy.

Republican Sen. Mel Martinez went a step further, calling for an overhaul of
U.S.-Cuba immigration policy. "The policy is wrong and it ought to be
changed," he said.

The issue has become more thorny for Republicans as the party grows
increasingly split over immigration, said Damian Fernandez, head of Florida
International University's Cuban Research Institute in Miami.

"I think that at some point, the dissonance between rhetoric and practice
will have some sort of result, whether it's a reformulation of the policy or
a political fallout -- with people's allegiance to the Republican party
eroded," Fernandez said.

In recent years, the wet-dry policy has become more stringent, and the
number of Cubans attempting to immigrate has continued to rise, Fernandez
said. More than 2,700 Cubans were stopped by the Coast Guard in 2005, more
than twice the number stopped in 2004.

Republicans have enjoyed solid Cuban-American support as far back as the
Kennedy administration, which many exiles blamed for the failure of the Bay
of Pigs.

The forced removal of Elian Gonzalez brought Cuban voters to the polls in
record numbers to vote for President Bush because they were unhappy with the
Clinton-Gore administration's handling of the case.

Elian, now 11, set off a seven-month custody battle after he was rescued off
the Florida coast in 1999. His mother died at sea, and his Miami relatives
and Cuban exile groups fought to prevent his return to Cuba. He was reunited
with his father in Cuba after an armed federal raid April 22, 2000, on his
relatives' home.

Cuban-American activists said they hoped the latest incident will spark a
review of the wet-foot, dry-foot rule, which was established in 1995 as a
way to stem a massive wave of Haitians and Cuban immigrants, while still
offering a safe harbor for Cubans who reached U.S. shores.

Hernandez said local Cuban-American leaders are trying to work with
Washington to revise the policy rather than revert to the protests that
became a staple of the Elian crisis.

"Instead of simply screaming about how unjust this is, we should try to
impose a solution," Hernandez said.

As he watched friends play dominos in Little Havana on Tuesday, Alberto
Cuervo, 57, said he was angered at the government but admitted the latest
incident was unlikely to affect the community's vote.

"We tend to forget very quickly," he said.

Associated Press Writer Damian Grass contributed to this report.
Copyright � 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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