'Car-boat' case a dilemma for president

[Osolomia]

Tue, Feb. 10, 2004

'Car-boat' case a dilemma for president
The fate of Cubans who rigged a car into a makeshift boat has put President Bush in another political bind with exiles.
Miami Herald

The case of the Cubans who rigged an old Buick to cross the Florida Straits in their quest for freedom -- but who could face being returned to the island -- has put President Bush back in a political bind with exile leaders just nine months before the election.

... With White House strategists once again eyeing the importance of Florida's 27 electoral votes, Bush unveiled a series of promises in October to crack down harder on Havana and showcase his opposition to Castro's rule.

But critics say the administration's tentative approach to the latest episode -- putting the car-boat migrants in limbo and looking to a court for guidance -- suggests the White House is afraid of enduring further criticism at a time that his overall approval rating has been dropping.

''They're nervous and they don't know what to do,'' said Joe Garcia, executive director of the influential Cuban American National Foundation and one of the most vocal critics of Bush's Cuba policies.

``They've got these guys sitting in the ocean, and it's completely political.''

More...
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/7915817.htm

[Osolomia]

1. DU's Bush Doctrine apologists have nothing to say about it?

Figures, spewing the faux news mentality is so much more fun than facing the facts eh?

[Aristus]

2. All that Repuke snorting and schadenfreude over Clinton's

problem with Elian Gonzalez is reaping some karmic payback. I wanna see the rethugs squirming about this. Serve them right to lose the Cuban-American vote.

[Skidmore]

3. The Cuban community helped to deliver

a close Florida vote for him in 2000. He wouldn't want to alienate another portion of his base at this time.

[Osolomia]

4. Evidently Dems don't want to "alienate" the extremist right wing minority

Candidates on the issues: Cuba
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=338191

What would a Dem prez do any differently in this situation? Inquiring minds want to know, BEFORE they vote!

[Judi Lynn]

5. It would be somewhat conspicuous if he decided he'd break the law

for these peeps.

The law clearly states they've got to go back unless they make it to dry land before getting caught.

God knows there'd be NO QUESTION if these would-be migrants were coming from any other country.

I would like to point out the MOTHER of Mr. Grass has been visiting in the U.S. LEGALLY recently, on her own. Maybe she could give the son some much needed advice about simply getting into the U.S. without creating international incidents.

[Osolomia]

6. Exactly

It's a no-brainer for anyone who doesn't have blinders firmly glued to their faces.

The mere fact that Grass's mother was perfectly free to apply for a visa and safely travel to the USA exposes the Bush Doctrine apologists' argument for what it really is: based on a crock of blatant lies and bullshit that evidently many a DUer will gladly swallow no questions asked as usual.

[yellowcanine]

7. Good, I love it when Bush gets his knickers all twisted up

Kind of tough keeping that house of cards standing, isn't it, chickenhawk George?

[Osolomia]

8. OMG DU, will you take you're blinders off and look at this

yellowcanine (893 posts) Thu Feb-05-04 01:47 PM
79. Nonsequitur-you infer there was a safer route. How do you know that to be true? So you know what opportunities were open to these people?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=346436#348261

snip/...

Luis Grass Rodriguez, his wife and 4-year-old son were among 11 people found on the Buick off the Florida Keys last week. Grass Rodriguez and his family are exempt from repatriation -- for now -- because he had started a process in the hopes of emigrating legally to the United States after a similar vehicle-to-boat conversion failed last summer.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-210cubacar,0,6290414.story?coll=sfla-news-cuba


Luis Grass Rodriguez, right, and his wife Isora Hernandez, left, and their son
Angel are seen walking toward the US Interests section to ask for visas in
Havana, Cuba in this July 30, 2003 file photo. Grass, who was brought back
to Cuba after he failed to reach Florida in a converted 1951 Chevy pickup in
July 2003, was caught by the U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004.
(AP File Photo/Cristobal Herrera)


Forget about Bush, how are the Dems going to keep their house of cards standing by keeping their blinders firmly glued to their faces while pandering to Miami's extremist right wing minority on Cuba?

Candidates on the issues: Cuba
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=338191

[Mika]

9. Seems as though most DUers don't get it

Our Dem party has been equally complicit in the ages old anti Cuba policies (that have failed to achieve the stated goal of said failed policies for 40+ years).


Maintaining the status quo is the way all parties involved want to keep it (except the Cuban government, which has been openly requesting a more normalized trade/travel relationship). Maintaining the status quo is the way the Dems and the Repugs keep the campaign money flowing from the pro and anti trade/travel special interests of the political and business nature. Keep in mind that all of this anti Cuba activity is undemocratic by nature, when one considers that a majority of Americans want to normalize US/Cuba trade and travel relations.



Poll: Americans on Cuban Sanctions
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=770
-
Poll: Cuban-Americans focus is local
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/6269237.htm

---

Only ONE candidate for US president
openly states that he would end the
unjust policy of sanctions and embargoes
against Cuba AND Americans.

That candidate is Dennis Kucinich.

-The Democratic Presidential Candidates on Cuba-
http://www.lawg.org/pages/new%20pages/Misc/prez-candidates1.htm

[Osolomia]

10. Evidently not all Americans are as ignorant and bigoted as DUers

or this issue would not be a dilemma for Bush and there would not be a bipartisan majority in Congress that voted to lift the travel ban now.

[Muddleoftheroad]

23. Some of us just don't like aiding dictators of any sort.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Osolomia]

28. Funny how many Republicans don't buy that bullshit anymore

and DU's bias forbids stating the obvious observations from this:

Castro Signs Baseballs, Talks U.S. Ties
By LISA J. ADAMS Associated Press Writer
February 9, 2004, 6:14 PM EST

HAVANA -- President Fidel Castro signed baseballs, handed out cigars and flower bouquets and discussed increased ties with the United States in a meeting Monday with two Republican legislators who want to lift a ban on U.S. travel to Cuba.

Sen. Larry Craig and U.S. Rep. Butch Otter, both of Idaho, "are pushing very hard to lift the travel restrictions," said Craig spokesman Mike Tracy, who attended the encounter with Castro at the Palace of the Revolution. The 22 other members of the trade and cultural delegation were also present, Tracy said.

Their meeting with Castro took place as the Bush administration announced it would freeze the bank accounts of companies controlled by the Cuban government or Cuban nationals that sell Americans illegal travel packages to the communist island. Craig told reporters Saturday he thought the travel ban would be lifted by next year. He spoke after Idaho delegation members signed trade and cultural agreements with the Cuban government in front of Ernest Hemingway's former estate outside Havana.

... Idaho officials plan to return to the island to take part in a trade exhibition in April and said they hoped to invite Cuban officials to the state to participate in educational and cultural exchanges

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=355027

[Osolomia]

29. With all these additions to the "Castro apologists" picture gallery

what's a biased DUer to do but keep their blinders firmly glued to their face and find some lame excuse to censor the facts:

Castro accepted three bottles of red, white, and blush wines and a color photo book on Idaho from the delegation, whose meeting with the president capped a four-day visit to the island.

In exchange, the communist leader gave his guests boxes of Cuba's famous cigars and flower bouquets, and signed baseballs and photographs of himself taken with delegation members.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-castros-guests,0,2543838.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[Osolomia]

Maybe Craig's sponsor will add him to their "Castro apologists" album

http://www.responsiblecubapolicy.org/album/

Here's a little sample:


Congressman Tanner(D) looks on
as President Castro autographs
the American flag.

Go figure!!!!!!!!!!

[yellowcanine]

11. And your point is?

"Started a process in the hopes of emigrating legally" - key words here being started and hope - apparently this man did not put a great deal of stock in his chances....Look, when people are "voting with their feet" it should tell you something. People don't take these kind of risks for the fun of it. It is the height of arrogance for us to sit here safe in the U.S. and say to the Cubans, "you must emigrate legally". I don't know why Cubans feel they have to do this and neither do you. But I do know that if it were as easy as you infer to emigrate, people would not be washing up on Florida beaches in Buicks.

On edit: By the way, I think the travel ban and the embargo should be lifted immediately. I don't see why you seem to think that because people don't agree with your position on how easy it is to emigrate that they would be in favor of the embargo.

[Osolomia]

13. Why should he be treated any differently than any one else

who "hopes" that the USA will accept their application for immigration?

Fact of ther matter is, no matter how much you want to cling to your state of denial despite the mountain of evidence at your fingertips, there's no excuse on Earth why this man had to endanger the life of his child to cross the Florida Straits. Even his mother was in Florida on a visitors visa at the time for crying out loud, that ought to tell you something if you bothered to take your blinders off for a second.

The reason it's not easy for the Cubans to enter the USA is because the USA has been denying them visas as the mountain of evidence at your fingertips and the case of the Grammy award nominees demonstrates for the umteenth time to those who don't have blinders firmly glued to their faces.

[yellowcanine]

17. I think you just made my point?

"The reason it's not easy for the Cubans to enter the USA is because the USA has been denying them visas"

Uh - isn't that what I have been saying? That it is not so easy to legally emigrate? Oh, and by the way the fact that his mother got a visitor's visa does not mean he could get a visitor's visa, let alone be permitted to emigrate. I know for a fact it doesn't work that way (where one family member may get a visa but another is denied). When it comes to visitors' visas the U.S. State Department makes an assessment of whether they think the person is likely to try to stay in the U.S. and if they think they will they deny the visa.

Is it really necessary to keep hurling abuse at people who disagree with you? I got the point that you think anyone with a different opinion from you has blinders on.

[Osolomia]

19. No, you make it sound like Cuba is denying them visas when its the USA

The fact is, this man did apply for a legal immigrants visa from the US but did not bother to wait and see if it was approved or not and needlessly endangered the life of his child instead and for that you think he should be allowed automatic entry for his "ingenuity".

[yellowcanine]

21. Didn't bother to wait or didn't have much hope of success?

It is easy for us in our safe place to tell the Cubans what they should or should not do. I reiterate - we don't know the circumstances. It is an extraordinary thing for someone to make a boat out of a car and set off for Florida. I for one, do not feel qualified to pass judgement on that person. We are not getting anywhere, so this is my last word. Thanks.

[Osolomia]

22. The evidence speaks for itself, a little integrity would go a long way!

yellowcanine (893 posts) Thu Feb-05-04 01:47 PM
79. Nonsequitur-you infer there was a safer route. How do you know that to be true? So you know what opportunities were open to these people?

yellowcanine (902 posts) Tue Feb-10-04 10:13 PM
17. … Oh, and by the way the fact that his mother got a visitor's visa does not mean he could get a visitor's visa, let alone be permitted to emigrate.

So evidently there is indeed a safer route for Cubans who do qualify for legal entry into the USA, contrary to popular American fantasy they do not have to endanger the lives of their children to "escape" the island. Live and learn!!!!

[Osolomia]

16. OMG DU, will you take you're blinders off and look at this too!

OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL
STATUS REPORT ON IMPLEMENTATION OF ENHANCED CUBA TRAVEL ENFORCEMENT

Date: February 9, 2004

On October 10, 2003, President Bush directed the Departments of Treasury and Homeland Security (“DHS”) to step-up enforcement of Cuba embargo travel restrictions by increasing inspections of travelers and shipments to and from Cuba, and by targeting those who travel to Cuba illegally through third countries and by private vessel for illegal business or tourism purposes or to carry unlicensed currency to Cuba.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) reports the following actions and progress to date to fully implement and enforce the President’s initiative.

...569 aircraft with passengers destined for Cuba, mostly direct charter flights, were targeted for outbound inspection. Over 44,000 passengers were screened as they departed the United States for Cuba and over 50,915 passengers were screened on their return to the United States on charter flights.

More...
http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/js1161.htm

Oh my, that's an awful lot of "exiles" who fled for their lives and "defectors" who have to "escape" freely and safely flying back and forth across the Florida Straits while you remain travel banned don't you think?

[yellowcanine]

20. Who says they are mostly recent emigrants?

Some are probably current emigrants - no one is saying that the door is completely shut - just that it is not so easy to get out or people wouldn't be using Buicks. Many of these people flying back and forth are Miami Cubans visiting their relatives in Cuba.

[Osolomia]

24. So how do the 20,000 legal immigrants that the USA accepts each year

get across the Florida Straits, swim?

"Many of these people flying back and forth are Miami Cubans visiting their relatives in Cuba."?

But according to DU these "exiles" all had to flee Cuba for their lives or they'd be persecuted!

The fact that it's the USA that's trying to economically cripple Cuba and is denying visas couldn't have any thing to do with the number of rafters eh?

[ThoughtCriminal]

12. If they had made past the Coast Guard

Just think of how much they could have sold the car for on eBay!

[TexasMexican]

14. I hope they are allowed to stay.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Haitians who crowd into boats and make the 600 mile trip

almost ALWAYS get sent back, even when they arrive on dry land, as did a group recently the cops chased around in traffic.

Their country has been a holy hell for ages. Some of them are desperate for sanctuary from actual danger, not to mention bone-crushing poverty, and of course, no medical help, no education, and a shockingly low life expectancy rate.

Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere, and close to the bottom in the entire world. They have been completely shunned since they overthrew their slave owners, and they have been up the crik ever since.

The Cuban thing is political, and everyone knows it: trying to punish Fidel Castro for now allowing the U.S. to continue to own and control the island.

[Mika]

18. Not only that, Haitians are jailed while waitng for a hearing

I'm sure you've read some of the horror stories about the treatment of Haitians in the Chrome detention center in S Miami-Dade while they wait months for a hearing, while nearly all are deported back to Haiti.

Cubans who arrive illegally are released into the general population within 24 hours, no matter if they have previously failed a legal US immigration visa, no matter what their past criminal record might be.


Cubans get special immigration perks, even if they get here by illegal means after having failed a US immigration application.

[Judi Lynn]

26. Yes, we hear true horror stories, and heartbreaking ones, at that

from the plight of Haitian's trying to find haven here.

Don't know if many remember or not, but during the time Elián Gonzalez was being held prisoner by his drunken uncle Lázaro, his family, and the CANF sponsors, a small Haitian girl, who had been brought here by her mother was orphaned when her mother died not long after arriving.

Our own INS got to work on trying to ship her back to Haiti A.S.A.P. More info.:

(snip) Haitian orphan's story draws no crowds"
Posté par Le Forum le 04/24/2000 à 10h37 (EST)

Haitian orphan's story draws no crowds
By Adrian Walker, Globe Columnist, 4/18/2000

MIAMI - Sophonie Telcy is 6 years old. Her mother died shortly after bringing her to America a few months ago. Sophonie has no desire to return to the country where she was born and, until recently, raised. Which in her case is Haiti.

Sophonie Telcy has no cheering sections outside the home of her guardians, no television crews, and no celebrities forming a human chain on her behalf. No one has suggested that her presence on these shores constitutes a miracle.

In fact, almost no one seems to care whether she stays or goes.

Sophonie lives with friends of her mother in Lake Park, Fla., a suburb of West Palm Beach less than 100 miles from the Elian Gonzalez circus. She is subject to deportation at any time. As surely as Elian has become the poster child for resistance to the Castro regime in Cuba, Sophonie's few advocates believe her fight with the government is just as symbolic - of what they view as a glaring double standard in US immigration policy.
(snip/...)

http://www.intervision2000.com/iv2-dcforum/dia-pol/5.html

[Judi Lynn]

27. Update: Eight of them are going home.

(snip) Posted on Tue, Feb. 10, 2004

Eight Cubans caught on floating Buick returned home; 3 in limbo
Associated Press

MIAMI - Eight Cubans caught at sea in a 1959 Buick converted into a boat were repatriated Tuesday by the U.S. Coast Guard, but the Bush administration and a judge have not decided what to do with three others found in the car.

In addition, 90 Cubans intercepted on three suspected smuggling missions in recent days also were returned to Cuba. Five smuggling suspects stopped on speedboats are in U.S. custody, the Coast Guard said.

A Cuban family of three remains on a Coast Guard cutter at sea while a federal judge in Miami decides whether they have any right to enter the United States. The Bush administration has the power to make its own decision on the family's fate if the judge's restraining order expires Wednesday without action.

The group of 11 was spotted on the converted car by a U.S. patrol plane in the waters between Florida and Cuba last week.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/7921063.htm

If they got a chance to see some of the homes I've seen in NorthWest Florida, they'd pile right back onto their car/boat and be glad to get home.

I have seen living conditions near Pensacola, Fla. which would make you doubt your sanity. Homes on muddy, red dirt roads, with hound dogs walking around, lying on porches, and the houses so frail you'd think a good breeze would tip them over. Poverty so overwhelming you feel absolutely overwhelmed, and so very, very sad.

I've seen this unbelievable poverty throughout the south, and anyone else would too, if he/she got off the highways, and looked into the small towns.

There's a whole lot about U.S. poverty which simply is unnoticed, and Americans who don't take time to drive around looking, appear to be oblivious of it altogether. Blind, unaware, and indifferent.

[Osolomia]

32. Balseros (Cuban Rafters) documentary on TV tomorrow night

In Canada that is:

Balseros (Cuban Rafters)

“Magnificent” L.A. Times
“Achieves a rare depth of intimacy in its portrait of dreams fulfilled and shattered” Hollywood Reporter

In the summer of 1994, Fidel Castro sanctioned the opening of Cuba's borders, allowing an exodus of 50,000 balseros (rafters) to set sail on dangerous home-made rafts from Havana to Miami, Florida. Two weeks later, in an attempt to discourage the flood of refugees risking their lives, the Clinton government withdrew automatic asylum. Stuck between two worlds, the refugees were detained for more than a year while the US Coast Guard wrestled with the question of what to do with them. Balseros follows a group of these rafters over seven years, from construction of their home-made rafts through to their capture and detainment and subsequent re-settling in diverse and often unlikely communities throughout the U.S.

Airing : Thursday, February 12 at 8 PM ET
http://www.documentarychannel.ca/details.asp?showID=406&typeID=3

There's a review of the film here:
http://www.documentarychannel.ca/program_guide/pdf/novdec_03/page1.pdf

This channel shows dozens of recent films and documentaries on Cuba.
Just the other week Grammy award nominee Jane Bunnett in "Spirits of Hanvana" was on again. Always a delightful treat, every time.

What a difference the 49th parallel makes!!!!! Thanks to the losers of the American Revolution who had to flee the USA for their lives and had their properties expropriated without compensation, look at them now! Could Batista's fellow "exiles" ever aspire to such a "democracy"?

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Osolomia]

31. Sorry, I cannot support the fauxnews mentality

and ignorant bias of websites that ought to know better by now.