These guys should have been let in based on ingenuity and inventiveness.
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
Posted on 07/25/2003 9:10:08 AM PDT by DTA
U.S. Coast Guard pulls over Chevy truck in Straits of Florida 12 Cubans aboard ═
National Post news services
Friday, July 25, 2003
WASHINGTON - The crew members of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter could not believe their eyes.
Chugging along at a steady 13 kilometres per hour in the Straits of Florida was a bright-green 1951 Chevrolet truck with 12 Cuban migrants aboard.
The ingenious craft was kept afloat by 12 250-litre drums strapped to its sides. The wheels were still in place and the engine was running, turning a propeller attached to the drive shaft.
There was even a captain at the wheel.
"We've seen surfboards, pieces of Styrofoam, bathtubs, refrigerators. But never an automobile," Petty Officer Ryan Doss of the U.S. Coast Guard said yesterday.
The Coast Guard was called in after a U.S. government plane spotted the truck last week in the Straits of Florida, about 64 km south of Key West, just more than halfway between Cuba and the United States.
The Coast Guard took all the passengers on board. Then they sank the vessel, deeming it "a hazard to navigation."
A photograph taken by the Coast Guard shows the craft cruising on calm seas.
Several men, all wearing bright red life jackets, sat on top of the green truck. The other travellers, who included two women and one child, were apparently riding under the bright yellow canopy that covered the back of the vehicle.
Since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, desperate Cubans have tried to flee the Caribbean island on rudimentary rafts, on the inner tubes from giant trucks, in stolen boats and planes, even by windsurfer.
In recent months several planes and boats were stolen or hijacked by people trying to reach Florida.
Under the U.S. immigration policy known as "wet foot, dry foot," Cubans who manage to set foot on U.S. soil are usually allowed to stay, while those stopped at sea are routinely sent back to Cuba.
This meant the 12 Cubans who had exhibited such painstaking ingenuity in turning the truck into a boat got no marks from the United States for their creativity. They were automatically barred from entering the country and were returned to Cuba on Sunday.
The following day, the United States returned a group of people who had hijacked a boat to leave the country after Havana agreed to limit jail terms to 10 years for any found guilty of illegal migration. The boat was intercepted at sea last week.
In March, six Cuban migrants landed their homemade boat on guarded U.S. Navy property in Key West, then wandered the streets downtown before authorities caught them.
These guys should have been let in based on ingenuity and inventiveness.
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
The ingenious craft was kept afloat by 12 250-litre drums strapped to its sides. The wheels were still in place and the engine was running, turning a propeller attached to the drive shaft.
But I think the canadian journalist shoulda done his homework. 12 55 gallon drums ain't going to keep this puppy afloat. As post 67 clearly shows, there are more than just six per side..
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