MIGRATION-CUBA: Returnees Dash Hopes of Aspiring Emigrants

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, May 19 1998 (IPS) - The return of 83 Cubans who left the island without authorisation further dashed the hopes of those with their sights set on “the promised north.”

The government of the Bahamas deported 65 Cubans and the U.S. Coast Guard returned 18 Monday in a demonstration of their willingness to comply with bilateral agreements with Cuba and prevent at any cost another exodus like the one that occurred in August 1994.

Although Cuba receives a minimum of 20,000 permanent resident visas a year from the United States, the flow of Cubans attempting to leave the island without permission has not been completely stemmed. U.S. Coast Guard figures indicate a rise in the number of Cubans intercepted at sea, from 45 in the first quarter of 1997 to more than 120 in the first quarter of this year.

Cuban authorities have not yet confirmed whether three baseball players and a coach who set out from the island in a rickety boat on Mar. 10 figure among the deportees, although according to the assistant director of Immigration in the Bahamas, Vernon Burrows, the athletes were part of the group of 65 repatriated Cubans.

A fourth player who also left on Mar. 10, Jorge Luis Toca, was issued a visa to travel to Japan, where his wife is residing.

The ball players were trying to follow the lead of Orlando Hernandez, “El Duque”, who was granted asylum earlier this year in Costa Rica and later won a 6.6 million dollar contract with the New York Yankees.

But no visas were forthcoming for the three players who left Mar. 10. The government of the Bahamas and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) concluded that they did not meet the requisites for obtaining political asylum.

Cuba’s National Information Agency (AIN) said the deportation of the 65 Cubans “constitutes the most reliable demonstration of the willingness of the Bahamas to comply with the bilateral memorandum on migration issues.”

‘The New Herald’, a newspaper published in Miami, wrote Tuesday that Cuban exile organisations in that U.S. city had been working to obtain visas from other countries for the Cuban refugees in the Bahamas.

“Unfortunately a pattern has been established, in this case by the United States, which has set a standard for the rest of the countries not to accept immigrants,” said Jose Basulto, president of the anti-Castro organisation Brothers to the Rescue in Miami.

Sally Moss, an official from the foreign ministry of the Bahamas stationed in Havana, told the AIN that the understanding between the two countries “is in full effect, and is even being granted new dimensions to further strengthen the accord.

Cuban government figures indicate that the Bahamas has deported 489 Cubans since the memorandum on migration was signed in 1996.

And with the 18 emigrants intercepted at sea and handed over to Cuban authorities by the U.S. Coast Guard Monday, the United States has repatriated 936 Cubans since May 1995.

The agreement between the United States and Cuba, signed after the last refugee crisis, stipulates that any person who attempts to reach U.S. territory through illegal channels will be sent home.

But once in the United States, Cubans need not worry. According to U.S. law, all Cubans who reach the country without documents or with only a temporary visa automatically obtain residence a year and a day after their arrival.