Well, to be honest, they were foolish to think that Cuba would give a right-wing American trying to escape a left-wing American government the time of day (heck Cuba must not even have any appeal process, they were shipped back in about 12 hours). However, I bet if they had been a bunch of leftist moonbats who were claimed they were escaping some aspect by the "George W. Bush" government, Cuba would have welcomed them with open arms and made a giant media spectacle out of it.
Elian Gonzales???
We know so little. But what if they stopped and planned on continuing to Belize or Central America, we pre-arrangements elsewhere. We may never know, but the parents were degreed engineers and not stoopid.