[Ppnews] Released Marielitos Left to Fend for Themselves

[PPnews at freedomarchives.org]

i personally served time with a number of these Cubans. many had not 
committed any serious anti-social acts at all, but had been picked up by 
INS for being undocumented, and as Cubans, were not deportable. When i got 
out of prison in 1998, they had done close to 20 years with no legal 
recourse but a hearing with some special panel every 2 years. Conditions 
for release were predicated on community ties. This catch-22 meant that 
they would have to establish ties while being locked up and with no real 
connections to any family in the u.s. Many prison disturbances occurred 
over the years in federal prisons due to this indefinite detention as the 
Cubans organized protests over these injustices. Ultimately the federal 
Bureau of Prisons prevented any large numbers of Cubans from being housed 
together in the same institution.

claude

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1108540591
60630. xml


Recently released from prison, Cuban refugees who came to the United States
in the 1980 Mariel boatlift are left to fend for themselves

"It's almost like sabotage," he said. "They lock up these people for so
long, then they just dump them on the street. They're going to get arrested
and then -- ah, ha! -- these people shouldn't have been released to start
off with, they'll say. They're a danger. It's not right."

By Keith O'Brien

New Orleans Times Picayune Wednesday, February 16, 2005


In recent days, Cuban refugees from Alabama prisons have been turning up at
the Salvation Army on Claiborne Avenue with little more than the clothes on
their backs and immigration cards that read simply, "paroled for
humanitarian reasons."

As the men tell it, they were left there with no money and nowhere else to
go, dropped off on the street by immigration officials who, for years, kept
them locked up in prisons. Once watched over, guarded day and night, these
men, who first came to the United States in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, are
now free, the first of nearly 200 Cuban prisoners to be quietly released
since last month's U.S. Supreme Court decision, immigration officials said
Tuesday.


But freedom, for these four men, has meant homeless shelters. And there are
nearly 700 more Cubans on the way to communities across the country --
including about 70 still being held in Louisiana prisons, a local
immigration official said.


These prisoners will be released in the days and weeks ahead on a
case-by-case basis, said Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, or I.C.E., in Washington, D.C. In some cases, he
said, they will be given transportation, clothes and a chance to reconnect
with long-lost loved ones.


But, Van Pelt said, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is not running
a "chauffeur service" or offering rehabilitation to "alien criminals," who
in some cases have been incarcerated for two decades. And for those released
locally, there has been little joy.


Instead, according to interviews with the newly freed prisoners and local
advocates, government officials have driven the men from Alabama prisons,
dropped them off outside the Salvation Army in the 4500 block of Claiborne
Avenue, and left them there with immigration cards and little else.


Three of the four men, including Roberto Pedrosa-Mesa, didn't want to be

brought here. Two of the four don't have the proper paperwork to get a job,
even though they are allowed to work by the federal government. And homeless
shelter providers in the city, including the Salvation Army, said they were
not told ahead of time that the Marielitos, as they are known, were on their
way.


"You need to have something that says you are a person," said Rusty Wirth, a
case manager at the New Orleans Mission, when he first learned Tuesday night
that Exiquio Real-Fuentes, a Cuban refugee, had been staying there since
Feb. 7.


Fuentes handed him a card that said "I.C.E. detainee" and a record of his
parole. That and the clothes on his back were all he had.


"It's very crazy," said Sue Weishar, director of immigration and refugee

services for Catholic Charities at the Archdiocese of New Orleans. "They're
so relieved to be out of prison. But they're very distressed now and
depressed. They don't know this town. They don't know anybody in it. They
don't want to be here. They're really very confused. We're going to try to
get them where they want to go. That's how they can restart their lives."


A frantic journey


An estimated 125,000 Cubans, known then as Mariel boat people, made a
frantic journey across the Straits of Florida after President Carter opened
his arms to Cubans in 1980. Cuban leader Fidel Castro retaliated by opening
the port of Mariel, near Havana, and bidding farewell to families seeking
freedom as well as criminals and the mentally ill.


Once in the United States, some Cubans were arrested quickly. Many became
citizens. Others remained illegal immigrants who got in trouble with the law
over the years, committing both serious and petty crimes. Typically, such
people would be deported after completing their prison sentences. But with
Cuba not willing to take them back, the federal government began holding
thousands of Cubans in U.S. jails, including several across Louisiana.


Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this practice had to end, and
both U.S. immigration officials, who fought the decision, and advocates, who
lobbied for the decision, began preparing for the release of 747 Marielitos
and
173 other immigrants.


"This is a Supreme Court decision," Van Pelt said Tuesday. "It's something
we disagreed with. There were individuals who argued for it, and this is the
end result. These are criminal aliens being released into the community."


'It's not right'


Van Pelt said that it is now up to those who championed the Marielito cause
to "step up to the plate" and help them. Salvador Longoria, a Cuban-American
attorney in New Orleans, said he and others would do that. On Tuesday night,
Longoria was asking the local Cuban community to help raise bus fare for the
men who want to go somewhere else. But he was upset that they were doing
what he saw as the government's work.


"I obviously think it's absurd that for so long these people were such a
risk that it was worthwhile detaining them on the taxpayer's dollar at the
tune of $1,000 per month, per person," Longoria said. "But now they can't
fork out 50 bucks or 60 bucks to put them on a Greyhound to Tampa or Miami
or wherever?


"It's almost like sabotage," he said. "They lock up these people for so
long, then they just dump them on the street. They're going to get arrested
and then -- ah, ha! -- these people shouldn't have been released to start
off with, they'll say. They're a danger. It's not right."

The first Cubans began showing up at the beginning of the month. Fuentes,
who said he served 11 years for a domestic argument, was paroled Feb. 1,
according to his paperwork. Salvation Army employees began noticing more
last week. That's when Roberto Pedrosa-Mesa said he arrived, free after
serving seven years for getting in a fight.

Mesa, 58, a carpenter by trade, spent three nights at the Salvation Army,
then, lacking the $7 fee to stay after that, he moved to the New Orleans
Mission and finally the Ozanam Inn, where he slept Tuesday night. Ozanam Inn
officials, though surprised to see him, said he would have a place to stay
until he could find work to help him get back to Miami, the place he
considers home.

The Ozanam Inn also made room Tuesday for two other Cubans, referred to
Weishar by a local Hispanic restaurant. Carlos Bueno-Rodriguez, 53, and
Celestino Leyva-Nunez, 52, had spent Monday night sleeping on the street,
Weishar said. And she was pleased when the Ozanam Inn offered them beds.

But when night manager Robert Palmer went to check the Cuban pair in on
Tuesday evening, they were nowhere to be found. Their beds went to other
homeless people. And for the night, anyway, Mesa was the only Marielito in
the building -- something that wasn't expected to last for long.

. . . . . . .

Keith O'Brien can be reached at kobrien at timespicayune.com or (504)
826-3452.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20050216/e24b2923/attachment.htm>