Cuban migration on the rise
Ever since Cuba's leadership change, the flow of illegal migrants into
the U.S. has been accelerating.
Posted on Sat, Sep. 08, 2007
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
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 the ailing Fidel Castro announced last year that he was
''temporarily'' ceding power to his younger brother Raúl 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 this
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 the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 -- 1,749 more than
last year.
The U.S. Coast Guard has caught 2,435 Cubans in the Florida Straits 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 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 Florida Straits or taking
alternate routes such as through the Mexican resorts of Cancún 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.
REASONS FOR LEAVING
Recently arrived Cubans interviewed this week 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 eventually 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' go-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.''
Abel Hernández, a neighbor of Cabrera's and fellow barber who joined the
Naples voyage, said, ``Lack of future, lack of hope, lack of freedom,
all those things are what caused me to leave.''
Hernández, 28, said he was earning 148 pesos a month, about $5.
``Everybody is in the same circumstance, even professionals. They end up
working in the fields because there are no jobs, or they get sent abroad
on international missions.''
Luis Torres, 33, said freedom, rather than money, was the issue for him.
''I was a doctor in Cuba, and I left not because there was not enough
money to be made, but because there was no freedom and no prospects of
freedom,'' Torres said. He fled Cuba by boat to the United States more
than a year ago, he said, because the Cuban government refused to give
him permission to leave even after he secured a visa to resettle in a
third country.
According to Border Patrol figures, the number of Cuban migrant landings
in South Florida so far this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, have
reached 3,625 -- exceeding by 549 people the number of migrant landings
for all of fiscal year 2006.
Increased patrolling by the Coast Guard has shifted a lot of migrant
traffic to alternate routes -- particularly Cancún and Isla Mujeres.
That's why Customs and Border Protection figures show a majority of
Cuban migrants now arriving via the Mexican border.
Some Cuban migrants say they are heading across the Yucatán Channel
instead of the Florida Straits because Cuba's southern coast, where
Mexico-bound trips originate, is less patrolled by Cuban border guards
than the northern coast -- launching site for South Florida-bound voyages.
''It's much easier to leave from the south coast than the north coast,''
said Elixander Valladares, 26, whose migrant group landed in Isla
Mujeres in March 2005. He now works in construction in Allentown, Pa.
William Mujica, 33, arrived in South Florida three months ago after
landing on the Yucatán Peninsula and making his way through Mexico to
San Ysidro, Calif.
''Many people want to leave Cuba right now,'' said Mujica, who was at
the Catholic Charities downtown Miami office Thursday to pick up a
parole document. ``There's uncertainty.''
Although Cuban migrants interviewed for this article insisted they did
not use smugglers, Coast Guard officials said a majority of Cuban
migrants now arrive or attempt to arrive aboard smugglers' ''go-fast''
boats at $7,000 to $10,000 per person.
13 BOATS SEIZED
Since Aug. 30, Coast Guard units interdicted or disrupted 18 migrant
smuggling operations in the Florida Straits, picking up 195 Cubans,
detaining 33 suspected smugglers and seizing 13 go-fast boats worth
about $200,000.
''That statistic clearly demonstrates to anyone that organized crime is
behind migrant smuggling and that criminals are profiting by exploiting
Cuban migrants and their families,'' said Coast Guard spokesman Lt.
Cmdr. Chris O'Neil.
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