Five Cuban rafters die at sea in attempt to leave country

dirtpoorchris said:

There are no US embargo boats in the area to pick of some of these escapers and bring them to the US for sanctuary? Oh wait. People aren't noble like that.

Click to expand...

they send them back to Cuba where they are sent to prison...remember the wet foot dry foot was eliminated and all aslyum processes also have been stopped.

Nickyjo said:

So do you think if Central Americans fearing death were to get the same benefits Cubans are singled out for that they would try to reach the US? That’s the backdrop of Cuban departures as well. O wait! Central Americans have been leaving for the US and other countries. To paraphrase Orwell, some refugees are more equal than others. I used to work with Cuban refugees. All were happy with US policy towards them but many recognized its hypocrisy.

Click to expand...

and to be honest, Cubans are mostly escaping now due to economics or to avoid prison for speaking against the government...in Central American countries they are running from death not economics.

Sandokan said:

So you think that the 96,000 Cuban rafters that have perished at sea trying to escape to reach the U.S., have a better outcome that the Central Americans leaving for the U.S.? Since you used to work with Cuban refugees, you must be aware of the high cost in human life trying to get the “benefits” of the U.S. policy. Many Cuban refugees are most unlucky than others.

Rafters Death Toll

The actual number of rafters who have perished at sea is very difficult to corroborate. The estimate number of the victims was derived by Dr. Armando Lago econometric research from data in studies by the Oceanographic Institute of the University of Miami and the University of Havana, and reports by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Dr. Lago estimated the number of rafters dead at 77,833 until 2003. Based in Dr. Lago estimate, the number of Cuban rafters attempting to escape, mostly by sea in small boats and makeshift rafts keep afloat by using inner tubes and disregards tires as floating devises, from 1959 to 2016 is around 240,000. The U.S. Coast Guard estimates that only one in four rafters who have attempted to escape has been successful, about 60,000, 35% have been captured and most of them send back to Cuba, over 84,000, and 40% have died in the attempt. The estimate number of casualties that died at sea attempting to escape is about 96,000.

Dr. Lago’s life’s legacy was to help build the Cuba Archive (About Us - Cuba Archive). He received his master and doctorate in economics from Harvard University. He had a distinguished career as university professor. Dr. Lago passed away in 2003.

Click to expand...

Both Cubans and the Central Americans in question are fleeting poverty and repression. The US has a double standard in dealing with them. End of story. Make Honduras and Guatemala into communist countries and Cuba into a right wing dictatorship where drug lords have significant power and watch US policy/practice flip. To be fair, there is apparently an obligation in US law mandating special treatment for Cubans, but ideology has often trumped fairness and law in US refugee policy. Before 1980 a refugee was *defined* as someone from a "communist or communist country" or from certain places in the Middle East.

This double standard is similar to Reagan's time, when murder by death squads and armies drove people out of El Salvador and Guatemala, and harsh post revolutionary policies (without mass murder) drove people out of Nicaragua. If I remember correctly, 40% of Nicaraguans got asylum. Am uncertain about that stat, but certain cause I had to deal with it professionally about the stats for the other two countries: about 2.5% of Salvadorans and 1% of Guatemalans did. (That changed when Bush I came to office.)

Btw: Great line by one of the guys I worked with. Something like his entire family was killed. The asylum adjudicator noted that the military spared *him.* His thoughts: "So I should go back home and return with my head under my arm in order for you to believe me."

ClaraD said:

and to be honest, Cubans are mostly escaping now due to economics or to avoid prison for speaking against the government...in Central American countries they are running from death not economics.

Click to expand...

Agreed, but I would modify that a bit. There is probably significant economic damage done in communities where drug gangs have influence or control.

Nickyjo said:

Agreed, but I would modify that a bit. There is probably significant economic damage done in communities where drug gangs have influence or control.

Click to expand...

there is indeed, but that is not what is driving a lot of people north. In Honduras, previous to the outbreaks of violence(I lived there up until 2011) people would say I would rather eat beans and rice with my family than earn dollars and have a car in the north(north is reference to the US). A lot of that changed after 2009 when violence and government inaction towards that violence became extreme. Only 5% of all homicides or violent crimes are solved in Honduras.

ClaraD said:

there is indeed, but that is not what is driving a lot of people north. In Honduras, previous to the outbreaks of violence(I lived there up until 2011) people would say I would rather eat beans and rice with my family than earn dollars and have a car in the north(north is reference to the US). A lot of that changed after 2009 when violence and government inaction towards that violence became extreme. Only 5% of all homicides or violent crimes are solved in Honduras.

Click to expand...

Good points. A couple years ago I visited a shelter in Guanajuato that served migrants heading north to the border or to Monterrey. Staff there told us that drug gangs would give youth 48 hours to join them or die. Some arrived while we were there and were in an adjoining room we had to pass through. Though their bodies were not skeleton like, their faces resembled some those you see in films showing the liberation of the Nazi death camps, POW's etc.

Nickyjo said:

Good points. A couple years ago I visited a shelter in Guanajuato that served migrants heading north to the border or to Monterrey. Staff there told us that drug gangs would give youth 48 hours to join them or die. Some arrived while we were there and were in an adjoining room we had to pass through. Though their bodies were not skeleton like, their faces resembled some those you see in films showing the liberation of the Nazi death camps, POW's etc.

Click to expand...

yes, this is true. My husband's brother was murdered in Honduras. He was shot by MS13, but the reason was he was a part of a security team in his neighborhood protecting the neighborhood from extortions by gang members. In Honduras, the police are obviously corrupt. They receive a percentage of all of the extortions that are done by gang members. You will occasionally see headlines where a few are busted for extortion, etc..but that is usually because the police didn't get the cut they wanted...or another gang offered more money to the police. The day it happened was conveniently the day that they collected the money from homes for the security(which is very common to have a charge for private security and is based on neighborhood, amount of security, etc. This occurred monthly. Anyhow, that morning a truck supposedly knocked down the security entrance to the neighborhood and the police were called to watch over while it was being repaired...well the police miraculously needed to go get something to drink and so forth and in that time, 30 seconds afterwards the security guards were murdered in a hail of gunfire from Ak47s. We assume that the police tipped off the gang that they were leaving*as to try to divert suspicion from themselves* and the security force was eliminated, as was a 5 year old child playing outside at the time and now the gang regularly charges extortion in the neighborhood and the crime was conveniently never solved and the police threatened the family if they continued running their mouths. My husband's entire family fled the country after they were told by a neighbor that there was a plan to kill them and get rid of the problem of questioning the police on this act.

ClaraD said:

yes, this is true. My husband's brother was murdered in Honduras. He was shot by MS13, but the reason was he was a part of a security team in his neighborhood protecting the neighborhood from extortions by gang members. In Honduras, the police are obviously corrupt. They receive a percentage of all of the extortions that are done by gang members. You will occasionally see headlines where a few are busted for extortion, etc..but that is usually because the police didn't get the cut they wanted...or another gang offered more money to the police. The day it happened was conveniently the day that they collected the money from homes for the security(which is very common to have a charge for private security and is based on neighborhood, amount of security, etc. This occurred monthly. Anyhow, that morning a truck supposedly knocked down the security entrance to the neighborhood and the police were called to watch over while it was being repaired...well the police miraculously needed to go get something to drink and so forth and in that time, 30 seconds afterwards the security guards were murdered in a hail of gunfire from Ak47s. We assume that the police tipped off the gang that they were leaving*as to try to divert suspicion from themselves* and the security force was eliminated, as was a 5 year old child playing outside at the time and now the gang regularly charges extortion in the neighborhood and the crime was conveniently never solved and the police threatened the family if they continued running their mouths. My husband's entire family fled the country after they were told by a neighbor that there was a plan to kill them and get rid of the problem of questioning the police on this act.

Click to expand...

So so sorry about your family’s losses.

40 Years have Passed since That Infamy
Latin American Herald Tribune - Carlos Alberto Montaner: 40 Years have Passed since That Infamy

By Carlos Alberto Montaner
April 3, 2020

The “Mariel exodus” occurred 40 years ago. One hundred and twenty-five thousand Cubans arrived in the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980. Jimmy Carter was not re-elected as president in the elections of November of that year as a consequence, at least in part, of his handling of the crisis. He refused to follow the advice of a ruthless admiral. “I have not been elected President of the United States to kill refugees,” he said.

Nor was Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton elected to a second term in Arkansas. He was accused of being “soft” for hosting hundreds of Cubans in Fort Chaffee. Less than 10% were crazy or criminal, but the stigma affected all the “Marielitos,” and even Cubans in general. Forty years later, the “Marielitos” have an economic and social performance similar to the American white population’s average, but they have also revitalized the Hispanic artistic world in the United States.
Click link above for full article.

Click to expand...

This incident caused the stampede of 10,834 Cubans that fleeing from oppression, voted with their feet entering into the Embassy grounds, after Castro removed the guards protecting the Embassy. The social pressure became so great that Castro on April 20, announces that all Cubans wishing to emigrate to the U.S. are free to board boats at the port of Mariel. Cuban exiles in the U.S. hire boats to go to Cuba and rescue their relatives. A total of 125,000 Cubans fled the island and their arrival on the U.S. created problems for the Carter administration, forcing it to declare a state of emergency on some Florida counties. The Castro regime released around 5,000 jailed criminals and mentally ill inmates, homosexual and prostitutes, forcing them to leave with the refugees. To validate his action Castro said that that the Cubans leaving the island were counter-revolutionaries who needed to be purged because they could never prove productive to the nation. Time proved him wrong, since the “Marielitos have an economic and social performance similar to the American white population’s average, but they have also revitalized the Hispanic artistic world in the United States.”

Between 1995 and 2015 close to 650,000 Cubans were admitted to the United States with and without visas. These Cubans exiles through their own efforts, blood, sweat and tears, have contributed significantly to United States society in politics, business, music, sports, visual arts, academia, and literature.

The Castroit regime got rid of the people who would make Cuba a better a place to live in. The initiative, the drive, the work-ethic and educational diligence, the determination to succeed exhibited by the Cuban exiles in America, could have been the bed-rock for a beautiful economically successful Cuban democratic republic. Instead, universal destitution, misery and starvation are the Castroit regime legacies to the Cuban people in the island.

As George Gilder wrote in “The Spirit of Enterprise” 20 years ago: “Cuban-Americans are the most successful immigrants in the history of this nation of immigrants.”

Cuban doctors and nurses seeking asylum keep border clinic running during pandemic
Cuban doctors seeking asylum run border clinic amid pandemic - Los Angeles Times

By MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE
MAY 25, 2020
MATAMOROS, MEXICO

The Cuban nurse picked her way through the sprawling border camp on the banks of the Rio Grande, past tents housing a couple of thousand migrants.

Mileydis Tamayo Salgado navigated a maze of worn dirt tracks wearing a red T-shirt labeled “Medico.” She ducked under clotheslines and tarps before entering treatment tents, thermometer in hand. There she took asylum seekers’ temperatures and asked if they had symptoms of COVID-19.

Tamayo, 50, slipped a thermometer in a protective sleeve between the lips of a 6-year-old Mexican girl.
“Close your mouth — thank you, my love,” the nurse said in Spanish, explaining, “If they have fevers, we take them to the clinic.”

The clinic, run by U.S. volunteers with Florida-based nonprofit Global Response Management, has been staffed since it opened last fall almost entirely by asylum seekers. Most are Cubans like Tamayo with prior medical training, plus a pharmacist from Nicaragua, an assistant from El Salvador, a nurse from Colombia and Mexican translators. They’re trying to prevent the virus from spreading as they and other migrants await U.S. immigration hearings repeatedly postponed because of the pandemic. Migrants who work at the clinic receive $15 to $30 a day in a weekly stipend.
Click link above for full article.

Click to expand...

Great work done by Cuban health professional seeking asylum in the U.S. helping other migrant in the border clinic.

On January 12, 2017, Barak Obama administration repealed the Cuban Medical Professional Parole (CMPP) program. Obama said that preferential treatment to Cuban doctors “contradicted” joint U.S. and Cuban efforts “to combat diseases that endanger the health and lives of our people.” He praised the regime doctor program. This change ended up leaving hundreds of Cuban doctors who had defected stranded south of the U.S. Mexico border.

In the ten years of existence of the CMPP more than 8,000 doctors and health personnel escaped to the United States. Despite the end of the medical parole program Cuban doctors continuous to flee from other countries and keep going north to the U.S. border with no guarantees that they will be granted asylum.

Sandokan said:

Great work done by Cuban health professional seeking asylum in the U.S. helping other migrant in the border clinic.

On January 12, 2017, Barak Obama administration repealed the Cuban Medical Professional Parole (CMPP) program. Obama said that preferential treatment to Cuban doctors “contradicted” joint U.S. and Cuban efforts “to combat diseases that endanger the health and lives of our people.” He praised the regime doctor program. This change ended up leaving hundreds of Cuban doctors who had defected stranded south of the U.S. Mexico border.

In the ten years of existence of the CMPP more than 8,000 doctors and health personnel escaped to the United States. Despite the end of the medical parole program Cuban doctors continuous to flee from other countries and keep going north to the U.S. border with no guarantees that they will be granted asylum.

Click to expand...

For years, the Castroit regime has sent health professionals to work overseas. Official Cuban figures show the regime earns more than $12 billion a year from the work of its professionals abroad. Cuban doctors working abroad receive less than 25% of the wages earned and the rest go to the Castroit regime. A portion of their earnings are retained in Cuba and can be collected only if they return to the island.

The dictionary define slave labor as “labor that is coerced and inadequately rewarded.” According to the definition, the Castroit regime vaunted medical care system is built on slave labor. It coerce the people to do something they would not do otherwise, and payed the doctors much less than the value of their work. They are the new white coat slaves.

One Cuban migrant family’s long, perilous journey to freedom
One migrant family’s long, perilous journey to freedom

By Lidia Terrazas/Cronkite Borderlands Project
July 14, 2020

This is the rout Maureny Reves Benitez and her parents took from Cuba to the United States after the Obama administration ended the “wet food, dry foot” policy in January 2017 ( Map by Cronkite News)

PHOENIX – It took Maureny Reves Benitez almost two years and thousands of miles of travel by boat, bus and foot through nine countries and the most dangerous jungle in the world to reach Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

She arrived near midnight on Nov. 15, 2019. As she waited in a corner of the airport for the next leg of her trip, she spoke to Cronkite Borderlands Project about her improbable journey.

It started in her native Cuba, Maureny said, where she was branded the “daughter of a traitor,” quashing hopes of a promising future.

The journey included harrowing experiences: She fled the communist-controlled island in a rickety boat in turbulent seas and sang to calm her fears of drowning. Soldiers – seeking to rob her of hidden money – strip searched her in Venezuela. She spent her 17th birthday crying and afraid, struggling to cross the perilous Darién Gap that straddles Colombia and Panama. And she and her parents spent months in a shelter in Mexico waiting for U.S. immigration officials to allow them entry.
Click link above for full article.

Click to expand...

Maureny travel with her parents for two years until they reach the Mexican-U.S. border and waited for 5 month until eventually were granted asylum in the U.S. There journey is really an outstanding odyssey. It is a long article, but it is worthwhile reading.

A one man wrecking crew thread...

Sandokan said:

Maureny travel with her parents for two years until they reach the Mexican-U.S. border and waited for 5 month until eventually were granted asylum in the U.S. There journey is really an outstanding odyssey. It is a long article, but it is worthwhile reading.

Click to expand...

Not really... **** happens. Cubans are not special.

This is a synopsis of their journey to freedom:

Maureny’s father, a critic of the Castroit regime, was forced by it to leave the island in 2015 and flee to Trinidad Tobago where the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugee granted him political refugee status. It is a long article, but it is worthwhile reading.

Maureny and her mother joint her father in Trinidad Tobago in 2017. From there they left with other immigrants in a un down boat toward Venezuela. From there they made the trip by land to Colombia. From here they traveled through the 60-mile stretch of dense jungle of the Darien Gap, considered the most dangerous in the world. She turned 17 in the jungle. After many days of walking they reach Puerto Obaldía and the next day they reached the encampment of Bajo Chiquito in Panama. From there they continuous to La Peñita where migrants are processed by SENAFRONT, which receive support from organizations like the Red Cross, Global Medical Brigades, UNHCR and others to help the migrants.

After leaving Panama, the family moved without major problems through Costa Rica and Nicaragua. When they reached Honduras they were nearly penniless. They could not pay for a humanitarian visa, and instead boarded a bus without proper documentation headed to Guatemala. They ride through Guatemala in one day, reaching the migrant settlement of Tapachula in Mexico. The Mexican government provided them with a humanitarian visa, which allow them to travel to the U.S. border without the risk of deportation.

On October 12, 1219, after 5 month of waiting, the family was processed by CBP officers at the border and transported to Phoenix, where they were processed a second time by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On November 16, Maureny and her parents boarded a plane to Miami, where they were help by a friend. Maureny was enrolled in high school immediately and graduated from high school in May. Fortunately this is a story with a happy ending.


Maureny Reves Benitez fulfilled her dream of returning to school, and in May, she graduated from high school in Florida. (Photo courtesy of Anisleydis Benitez)

Border Patrol arrests 20 Cuban migrants who landed in Key West in a homemade boat
Access Denied

BY GWEN FILOSA
JULY 17, 2020 02:30 PM

Twenty Cuban migrants who landed in Key West on Tuesday were arrested after a treacherous trip in a homemade boat, U.S. Border Patrol agents said.

“The migrants were exposed to extreme temps on an overloaded homemade style vessel with no safety equipment,” wrote U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent John R. Modlin in a Tweet on Thursday. “This type of journey from Cuba is dangerous!”

Early July 16, Border Patrol responded to what they called a “smuggling event.”

The 20 Cuban nationals were taken into federal custody.

They had left Cuba on a rustic-style vessel and made landfall near the Southernmost Point landmark, which is at the corner of Whitehead and South streets in Key West.
Click link above for full article.

Click to expand...

According to the U.S. Border Patrol twenty people were crowded in this small makeshift boat when they landed in Key West on the spot that marks the 90 mile stretch between the U.S. and the island. In reality, according to witnesses, 32 people landed, among them a baby with the parents. They jumped from the boat and 11 of them manage to scape.

Yeah, a doctor in Cuba makes $30K a year.

In America, they make three to four times as much.

Even during the coronavirus lockdown, and exposed to extreme temperatures on an overloaded boat, Cubans continue to escape from “The Isla of Dr. Castro” on unseaworthy rustic rafts, a risky and dangerous trip. Those who were caught have a slim chance to remain in the U.S.

Coast Guard stops Cuban migrants in boats off Florida Keys

https://www.local10.com/news/local/...ops-cuban-migrants-in-boats-off-florida-keys/

20 repatriated to Cabanas

The Coast Guard Cutter Resolute's law enforcement team stop migrants off the coast of Marathon, Florida Aug. 19, 2020. (US COAST GUARD PHOTO) (WPLG)

https://www.local10.com/team/Michelle Solomon/']Michelle Solomon[/URL][/B], Podcast Producer/Reporter
August 22, 2020

MIAMI, Fla. – A 27-foot cabin cruiser and a 27-foot row boat were stopped off the Florida Keys by the Coast Guard with Cuban migrants aboard.

The cruiser was spotted about 19 miles south of Long Key on Tuesday, while the row boat was intercepted about 43 miles off Marathon on Wednesday.

Two of the migrants from the cruiser were transferred ashore to Homeland Security Investigation agents and 20 migrants total from both vessels were transferred to Coast Guard Cutter Charles David, Jr. and were repatriated to Cabanas, Cuba.
Click link above for full article.

Click to expand...

Cubans keep escaping in unworthy sea vessels no matter what. The only way to stope it is to get rid of the Castroit tyrannical regime. Only then things will be back to normal.

fiddlerdave said:

What could be considered a BIG motivator for these "boat people" is the DEAL they get if they make it to the USA.

Legal or illegal, they are Immediately given "refugee" status. They IMMEDIATELY receive special housing, money, food, and support in the USA.

In ONE year, they are GUARANTEED to be issued a PERMANENT Green Card to WORK in the USA, and become a PERMANENT Legal Resident.

They have a FAR better deal than US citizens born here.

Ilegal Cuban Migrants Get Immediate Benefits and Services: a Green Card in a Year: Illegal Immigrants from Cuba: Preferential Treatment to get Green Card

Click to expand...

The problem is not Cubans getting generous benefits. That is part of what much of the world sees as the rank hypocrisy of US policy in Latin America before and since the Cold War. From making Cuba a vassal state after its independence, to FDR saying “he’s a son of a bitch, but he’s OUR son of a bitch” about Somoza, to the establishment of tyranny and tens of thousands of deaths in Guatemala in 1954, to Reagan’s support of government by death squad in El Salvador, we acted no differently than the Soviets did in Eastern Europe. Latest chapter is Trump’s separation of Central American families and changing the rules to deny them asylum. Imagine if we separated Cuban kids from their parents.

Sandokan said:

Again the backdrop of the Castros tyranny “reforms” greeted by the mainstream media, Cubans continue to risk their lives to escape from workers paradise. Five more victims of the Castro brothers, the cause of this tragedy.

Click to expand...

yet, the issue is an economic one....until you guys start being concerned about the Central American kids that are actually fleeing to avoid dying...I do not give a damn about Cubans that want to make it to the US for a job.

Obama decision to repeal the executive policy of “Wet Foot/Dry Foot”, require that Cubans who attempt to enter the U.S. illegally shall be sent back to the island. He said, “We are treating Cuban migrants the same way we treat migrants from other countries.” The problem is that his new executive policy doesn’t differentiate between migrants and refugees. Migrants shall be sent back, they do not deserve special treatment. Refugees shall be provided with asylum, but they must prove they face political, religious or other type of persecution in their homeland. That was how they were treated before the wet food/dry foot policy.

Cuba gives the green light on the deployment of Russian Navy bases on the island
The state Department and the Pentagon have already expressed concerns and concerns, they even called it an act of aggression
It's funny when you consider that Norway recently opened its naval base for the United States and NATO
And this is right at the borders of Russia

Coast Guard stops 13 Cuban migrants about 105 miles off Key West

Click to expand...

https://www.flkeysnews.com/news/state/article246505295.html

BY GWEN FILOSA

OCTOBER 16, 2020 02:57 PM,

The U.S. Coast Guard on Oct. 13 helped Bahamian authorities stop two illegal boat trips by Cuban migrants about 105 miles off Key West.

A Coast Guard air crew spotted two vessels with a total of 13 Cuban migrants aboard in Bahamian waters off the southern coast of Cay Sal Bank.

Working with Bahamian authorities, a team aboard the Coast Guard cutter Isaac Mayo transferred the migrants to the vessel. They were later transferred to a Royal Bahamas Defence Force ship.
Click link above for full article.

Click to expand...

Not even the threat of coronavirus deter Cuban rafters for trying to escape from the Castroit tyrannical regime virus, many times more deadly than coronavirus. No matter what they get the way out of the regime hell hole. As the saying goes “better dead than red”