MIAMI, FL — U.S. Coast Guard officials say they are worried about a
new spike in "desperate" Cubans heading for the United States on
rickety, homemade boats, with some of those migrants willing to resist
and confront the Coast Guard officers who intercept them.
"In the past year, we've had over 20 cases where
there has been violence toward our boarding team members or other
migrants on these vessels," said Capt. Mark Fedor, the Chief of Response
for the U.S. Coast Guard Seventh District.
In the last three months of 2015, according to
Coast Guard statistics, 1,536 Cubans took to the sea, most of them
picked up by the Coast Guard. This compares to 4,473 Cubans in all of
fiscal 2015, which ended September 30.
In the first five days of January alone, the
number had already climbed to 176, indicating a steady escalation in
Cuban maritime migration at a time of year when winter weather typically
keeps the numbers low.
Coast Guard officials say many of the Cubans
they've intercepted have told them there are two reasons that more Cuban
citizens are now setting sail.
"The first being they don't see any bright economic future for
themselves in Cuba, even with the normalization process that's going
on," said Capt. Fedor in Miami.
The second reason is a widespread fear on the
island that soon the United States could end the special immigration
privileges given to Cubans during the Cold War under the Cuban
Adjustment Act.
According to that 1966 law, and later by the
rules of the so-called "wet-foot dry-foot policy," virtually any Cuban
who sets foot on U.S. soil, with a "dry foot," is allowed to stay in the
country.
Most Cubans who are picked up at sea, with a "wet foot," are repatriated.
Cuban government officials have long urged the
U.S. to end these special immigration privileges, arguing they draw
Cubans to the sea and often to their deaths.
So far, though, the U.S. has resisted changing the law, and is trying to tamp down rumors to the contrary in Cuba.
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Source : http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world
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