Repatriated Cubans bet on American dream coming true

By Esteban Israel

SAN FRANCISCO DE PAULA, Cuba (Reuters) – Cubans who made
the dangerous crossing to Florida only to land on an abandoned
bridge and be sent home in a controversial decision, are now
dreaming of America, a new car and the freedom they say awaits
them in Miami.

“My mind is already over there in those skyscrapers. I just
want to work, have a house and a brand new car,” said Emiliano
Batista, a 22-year-old waiter who has tried crossing the
Florida Straits 18 times.

In his last attempt at the 90-mile (120-km) crossing,
Batista crowded into a makeshift motorboat with 14 other men,
women and children in late January. The group thought they had
made it when they were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard on an
abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys.

But the Coast Guard decided the century-old Seven Mile
Bridge did not count as dry land because sections were missing
and it was no longer attached to U.S. soil.

The group was returned to Communist Cuba under the U.S.
government’s controversial “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy which
allows Cubans who reach land to stay while those intercepted at
sea get repatriated.

A U.S. judge ruled on Tuesday in Miami that the U.S. Coast
Guard erred in returning the group and ordered federal
authorities to make their best effort to help them return to
the United States.

It is not clear if President Fidel Castro’s government,
which restricts the freedom of Cubans to leave the island, will
permit their legal migration to the United States.

But in their dusty farm town 70 miles east of Havana,
confidence is running high among the hopeful migrants.

“We were sad, overcome by uncertainty. But now we are sure
that everything will work out well,” said Batista, who already
speaks about his life in Cuba in the past tense.

The group, aged 2 to 48 years, have already filled out
applications for Cuban passports and the U.S. Interests Section
in Havana has scheduled them for visa interviews on Monday.

Their repatriation angered Cuban exiles in Miami who
believe all Cubans should be allowed to stay because they are
fleeing persecution.

One anti-Castro activist, Ramon Saul Sanchez, went on a
hunger strike in protest, obtaining a White House pledge to
meet exile groups and politicians to discuss the policy.

CUBANS STILL FLEEING

The repatriation of Cuban boat people started a decade ago
under agreements between Washington and Havana that were
designed to avoid another mass exodus like the one in 1994 when
35,000 people took to the sea, many in flimsy rafts, fleeing
economic distress in post-Soviet Cuba.

The United States agreed to grant at least 20,000 visas a
year to encourage orderly emigration.

But Castro routinely accuses Washington of encouraging
Cubans to embark on dangerous crossings in precarious crafts by
allowing them to stay if they manage to make it across.

Economic hardship continues to fuel a constant exodus. In
fiscal year 2005, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted 2,712 Cubans
at sea, the most since the 1994 crisis. At least 39 others died
trying to get to the United States.

Batista said his group sold everything they had to build an
18-foot (6-meter) boat and buy a motor on the black market.
They took 27 hours to cross the straits.

“It was worth the cold, the hunger and the danger we went
through,” said repatriated migrant Elizabeth Hernandez, who
crossed with her husband and two-year-old son Maikel.

“They said in the United States that we can return,” she
said. “We don’t think the Cuban authorities will stop us. We
haven’t done anything wrong for them to hold us.”