26 Cuban refugees reach Longboat Key

Posted on Tue, Dec. 19, 2006

26 Cuban refugees reach Longboat Key
Wet-foot, dry-foot policy allows them to pursue citizenship in the United States
MELANIE MARQUEZ
Herald Staff Writer

As mosquitos floated inches above the ground and streetlights reflected off their bloodshot eyes, more than two dozen Cuban immigrants milled in the parking lot Monday outside the U.S. Border Patrol office in Tampa.

At 8 p.m., the parking lot remained the only destination for many until family, friends or even strangers could take them and get them closer to Miami, the place they thought they were going to land when they boarded a boat late Friday night off the coast of Cuba.

Instead they landed in Manatee County, off the northern tip of Longboat Key.

There they huddled, wet and cold from the three-day trip, by a brown and white "Welcome to Longboat Key" sign until a shrimp delivery man stopped at 5 a.m. and called the police.

The trip from Cuba took longer than expected, many of them said, because stormy weather changed their route. They had no food on the boat, no bathroom and there was constant vomiting. The men relieved themselves one side of the boat; the women on the other.

They couldn't walk out into the fresh air during the trip. They didn't know the names of the people who brought them.

"You don't ask questions," said Carlos Ivan Suarez Rodriguez, a 35-year-old who left a wife and two children in Cuba. "The reason we came is because of the economic situation in Cuba. You work, but it isn't enough."

'We are very grateful'

After the rigors of sailing, the group was surprised and relieved by the welcome they received on shore. Ten minutes after the call was made to police, paramedics arrived, checking their pulses and giving them blankets.

"We are very grateful for the way we have been treated," said Emilia Vasquez Sevilla as she waited in one of the vans at the Longboat Key Police Department, where they were interviewed until being taken to the Tampa Border Patrol office at 10 a.m.

Typically, Cubans, who make it to land go directly to a health screening at a Miami clinic, but this group was given paperwork and told to get their health screening within 90 days, said Steve McDonald, the lead agent at the Tampa office.

At the Tampa office they were held in cell with benches and blankets. They sat through interviews with agents eating microwaved meals and offering biographical information and bits and pieces about the boat that brought them here.

Three U.S. Coast Guard vessels had been searching for it earlier in the day, but by the afternoon the search was off, said Sondra-Kay Kneen, public affairs officer for the Coast Guard.

'We help each other out'

Before Friday's journey began, Rodriguez rolled cigars in Cuba, earning eight Cuban pesos a day. It cost him 50,000 of his country's currency to get smuggled into the United States.

He had a phone number and address written on his hand, the only contact information he has for his sister who lives in Miami. But the phone number wasn't working Monday night, so he waited in the parking lot with others who said they could get him a ride to Miami.

From there, without money and without knowing English, he hopes to track down his sister.

"If God is willing, one day I will bring my wife and children here," he said.

Nearby sat Ysumi Carilla Gomez, a tan-skinned, curly-haired woman holding a few papers in her hand. Rodriguez could ride with her, she said, when her brother arrived from Miami to pick her up to live with her 14-year-old son, who fled Cuba in a boat two years ago.

"We are very united as Cubans," Gomez said. "And humane. We help each other out."

Border Patrol officers released the immigrants gradually in Tampa, as people arrived to pick them up.

Yoniel Estevez, 24, was the first refugee of the 26 to be released.

"I'm here to study, have a better life. It was worth it," Estevez said. "Here you are free, that doesn't exist in Cuba. Everything Castro says is a lie."

His friend, Leodan Nodarse, was working at home in Tampa, where he does detailing for trucks, when someone drove by his house to let him know a boat had arrived on the west coast and his friend Estevez was one of the people on it.

He washed grease off his hands and changed his clothes to pick up Estevez, a friend and schoolmate he hadn't seen since leaving Cuba himself more than a year ago to live with his father, a U.S. resident.

As Estevez walked out of the brick building he walked up to his friend. They high-fived, hugged and they got into Nodarse's black Mercedes-Benz, a shiny car with red, white and blue beads hanging from the rear-view mirror. Estevez will stay at his friend's home indefinitely, until he finds his own way in his new country.

"I will help him with everything he needs," Nodarse said.

'Many don't survive'

By 7 p.m. all the refugees were released from the Tampa office.

One woman, Barbara Garcia arrived in a dented sedan to pick up her cousin, whom she didn't know had fled Cuba until her aunt in Miami called her crying, asking her to pick him up. She and her husband, Andres waited to take her cousin home where he would stay until making a trip to Miami.

"I'm very happy to know he's here. The trip from Cuba is so difficult," said Garcia, who works as a housekeeper in a hotel and has lived in the United States for four and half years. "Many don't survive."