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<font size=3>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.
<br><br>
claude <br><br>
<a href="http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1108540591" eudora="autourl">http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1108540591<br>
</a>60630. xml<br><br>
<br>
Recently released from prison, Cuban refugees who came to the United
States<br>
in the 1980 Mariel boatlift are left to fend for themselves<br><br>
"It's almost like sabotage," he said. "They lock up these
people for so<br>
long, then they just dump them on the street. They're going to get
arrested<br>
and then -- ah, ha! -- these people shouldn't have been released to
start<br>
off with, they'll say. They're a danger. It's not right."<br><br>
By Keith O'Brien<br><br>
New Orleans Times Picayune Wednesday, February 16, 2005<br><br>
<br>
In recent days, Cuban refugees from Alabama prisons have been turning up
at<br>
the Salvation Army on Claiborne Avenue with little more than the clothes
on<br>
their backs and immigration cards that read simply, "paroled
for<br>
humanitarian reasons."<br><br>
As the men tell it, they were left there with no money and nowhere else
to<br>
go, dropped off on the street by immigration officials who, for years,
kept<br>
them locked up in prisons. Once watched over, guarded day and night,
these<br>
men, who first came to the United States in the 1980 Mariel boatlift,
are<br>
now free, the first of nearly 200 Cuban prisoners to be quietly
released<br>
since last month's U.S. Supreme Court decision, immigration officials
said<br>
Tuesday.<br><br>
<br>
But freedom, for these four men, has meant homeless shelters. And there
are<br>
nearly 700 more Cubans on the way to communities across the country
--<br>
including about 70 still being held in Louisiana prisons, a local<br>
immigration official said.<br><br>
<br>
These prisoners will be released in the days and weeks ahead on a<br>
case-by-case basis, said Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for U.S.
Immigration<br>
and Customs Enforcement, or I.C.E., in Washington, D.C. In some cases,
he<br>
said, they will be given transportation, clothes and a chance to
reconnect<br>
with long-lost loved ones.<br><br>
<br>
But, Van Pelt said, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is not
running<br>
a "chauffeur service" or offering rehabilitation to "alien
criminals," who<br>
in some cases have been incarcerated for two decades. And for those
released<br>
locally, there has been little joy.<br><br>
<br>
Instead, according to interviews with the newly freed prisoners and
local<br>
advocates, government officials have driven the men from Alabama
prisons,<br>
dropped them off outside the Salvation Army in the 4500 block of
Claiborne<br>
Avenue, and left them there with immigration cards and little
else.<br><br>
<br>
Three of the four men, including Roberto Pedrosa-Mesa, didn't want to
be<br><br>
brought here. Two of the four don't have the proper paperwork to get a
job,<br>
even though they are allowed to work by the federal government. And
homeless<br>
shelter providers in the city, including the Salvation Army, said they
were<br>
not told ahead of time that the Marielitos, as they are known, were on
their<br>
way.<br><br>
<br>
"You need to have something that says you are a person," said
Rusty Wirth, a<br>
case manager at the New Orleans Mission, when he first learned Tuesday
night<br>
that Exiquio Real-Fuentes, a Cuban refugee, had been staying there
since<br>
Feb. 7.<br><br>
<br>
Fuentes handed him a card that said "I.C.E. detainee" and a
record of his<br>
parole. That and the clothes on his back were all he had.<br><br>
<br>
"It's very crazy," said Sue Weishar, director of immigration
and refugee<br><br>
services for Catholic Charities at the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
"They're<br>
so relieved to be out of prison. But they're very distressed now
and<br>
depressed. They don't know this town. They don't know anybody in it.
They<br>
don't want to be here. They're really very confused. We're going to try
to<br>
get them where they want to go. That's how they can restart their
lives."<br><br>
<br>
A frantic journey<br><br>
<br>
An estimated 125,000 Cubans, known then as Mariel boat people, made
a<br>
frantic journey across the Straits of Florida after President Carter
opened<br>
his arms to Cubans in 1980. Cuban leader Fidel Castro retaliated by
opening<br>
the port of Mariel, near Havana, and bidding farewell to families
seeking<br>
freedom as well as criminals and the mentally ill.<br><br>
<br>
Once in the United States, some Cubans were arrested quickly. Many
became<br>
citizens. Others remained illegal immigrants who got in trouble with the
law<br>
over the years, committing both serious and petty crimes. Typically,
such<br>
people would be deported after completing their prison sentences. But
with<br>
Cuba not willing to take them back, the federal government began
holding<br>
thousands of Cubans in U.S. jails, including several across
Louisiana.<br><br>
<br>
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this practice had to end,
and<br>
both U.S. immigration officials, who fought the decision, and advocates,
who<br>
lobbied for the decision, began preparing for the release of 747
Marielitos<br>
and<br>
173 other immigrants.<br><br>
<br>
"This is a Supreme Court decision," Van Pelt said Tuesday.
"It's something<br>
we disagreed with. There were individuals who argued for it, and this is
the<br>
end result. These are criminal aliens being released into the
community."<br><br>
<br>
'It's not right'<br><br>
<br>
Van Pelt said that it is now up to those who championed the Marielito
cause<br>
to "step up to the plate" and help them. Salvador Longoria, a
Cuban-American<br>
attorney in New Orleans, said he and others would do that. On Tuesday
night,<br>
Longoria was asking the local Cuban community to help raise bus fare for
the<br>
men who want to go somewhere else. But he was upset that they were
doing<br>
what he saw as the government's work.<br><br>
<br>
"I obviously think it's absurd that for so long these people were
such a<br>
risk that it was worthwhile detaining them on the taxpayer's dollar at
the<br>
tune of $1,000 per month, per person," Longoria said. "But now
they can't<br>
fork out 50 bucks or 60 bucks to put them on a Greyhound to Tampa or
Miami<br>
or wherever?<br><br>
<br>
"It's almost like sabotage," he said. "They lock up these
people for so<br>
long, then they just dump them on the street. They're going to get
arrested<br>
and then -- ah, ha! -- these people shouldn't have been released to
start<br>
off with, they'll say. They're a danger. It's not right."<br><br>
The first Cubans began showing up at the beginning of the month.
Fuentes,<br>
who said he served 11 years for a domestic argument, was paroled Feb.
1,<br>
according to his paperwork. Salvation Army employees began noticing
more<br>
last week. That's when Roberto Pedrosa-Mesa said he arrived, free
after<br>
serving seven years for getting in a fight.<br><br>
Mesa, 58, a carpenter by trade, spent three nights at the Salvation
Army,<br>
then, lacking the $7 fee to stay after that, he moved to the New
Orleans<br>
Mission and finally the Ozanam Inn, where he slept Tuesday night. Ozanam
Inn<br>
officials, though surprised to see him, said he would have a place to
stay<br>
until he could find work to help him get back to Miami, the place
he<br>
considers home.<br><br>
The Ozanam Inn also made room Tuesday for two other Cubans, referred
to<br>
Weishar by a local Hispanic restaurant. Carlos Bueno-Rodriguez, 53,
and<br>
Celestino Leyva-Nunez, 52, had spent Monday night sleeping on the
street,<br>
Weishar said. And she was pleased when the Ozanam Inn offered them
beds.<br><br>
But when night manager Robert Palmer went to check the Cuban pair in
on<br>
Tuesday evening, they were nowhere to be found. Their beds went to
other<br>
homeless people. And for the night, anyway, Mesa was the only Marielito
in<br>
the building -- something that wasn't expected to last for
long.<br><br>
. . . . . . .<br><br>
Keith O'Brien can be reached at kobrien@timespicayune.com or (504)<br>
826-3452.<br>
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