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MIAMI -- Fifteen Cubans who fled their homeland and landed on an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys were returned to Cuba Monday after U.S. officials concluded that the piling did not constitute dry land, authorities said. Under the U.S. government's "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach dry land in the United States are usually allowed to remain in the country, while those caught at sea are sent back. Earlier Monday, officials said the Cubans were aboard a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, as they awaited a final decision as to their status. The historic Old Seven Mile Bridge, which runs...

The Associated Press PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Feb. 27 — The U.S. Coast Guard repatriated 531 Haitian boat people at a dock near the capital Friday in a bid to choke off a tide of refugees from the troubled country. It was the first repatriation since Haiti's uprising began Feb. 5 and underscored President Bush's determination not to allow the rebellion to lead to a mass exodus, despite pleas from human rights groups and three Florida lawmakers to allow them refuge. The Haitians including infants were left on the dock on the southern outskirts of the tense capital. Most said they were...

U.S. Coast Guard Returns 36 Cubans Picked Up at Sea, Including 22 in Speedboat Feb 27, 2004 The Associated Press MIAMI (AP) - Thirty-six Cubans - including 22 in a speedboat racing toward Florida - were returned to Cuba this week after separate interdictions at sea, the Coast Guard said Friday. The larger group was spotted in the speedboat Sunday about 10 miles east of Key Largo by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement aircraft, according to a Coast Guard news release. Twenty-one were repatriated and one, a suspected smuggler, was turned over to federal law enforcement. Under U.S. immigration law,...

MIAMI - The US Coast Guard said on Wednesday that it repatriated 33 Cubans caught at sea as they sought to flee the country to the US, most of them aboard an overloaded go-fast boat. The Cubans were taken to Bahia de Cabanas, Cuba, aboard a US vessel, the US Coast Guard said. The migrants were from two groups intercepted since Saturday, it said. Advertisement On Saturday, a US Coast Guard vessel intercepted an overloaded go-fast boat with 31 migrants and three suspected smugglers aboard. The suspected smugglers were detained and the migrants were taken to another coast guard vessel...

On Monday August 11, six of the 12 Cuban refugees that the Bush administration so swiftly returned to Castro were brought for the typical kangaroo trial in Havana. They were charged with “hijacking.” But every Cuban knows that, especially for high-profile cases, the regime carefully chooses the charge that will maximize the intimidation effect for the population. Actually, this group of 11 men and one woman overpowered a crew of three men taking a Cuban mapping and geological research vessel on July 15. The next day the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted their trip to freedom off the Bahamas. As swiftly...

<p>Relations continue to sour between the Bush administration and Cuban-Americans in South Florida, who voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush in 2000.</p> <p>Yesterday, a group of Florida Republican state representatives were expected to send a letter to the White House warning of political repercussions unless the administration adopts a tougher Cuba policy, the Miami Herald reports.</p>

MIAMI (AFP) - A senior White House official claimed Friday Cuban President Fidel Castro may have ordered a recent boat hijacking in a successful bid to sow discord between the Cuban-American community and the US administration. "Look at the impact on the Cuban (American) community: he's got Cuban groups fighting against each other, he's got the Cuban community criticizing the administration," said Otto Reich, President George W. Bush's chief advisor on Latin America. "This was a million-dollar operation; you cannot buy that kind of discord," Reich told AFP. The administration has come under criticism from prominent Cuban-American leaders for sending...

<p>It is not an overstatement to argue that George W. Bush is president today largely because of Cuban Americans. After Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno ordered an armed raid to take 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez away from his family and ship him off to communist Cuba, outraged Cuban Americans turned out in force to vote against Democratic candidate Al Gore in retribution for the administration's mistreatment of one of their own. More than 80 percent of Florida's 400,000 Cuban-American votes were delivered for Mr. Bush in 2000. This put him over the top in that state's close election, and thus, provided the electoral votes to defeat Mr. Gore.</p>

<p>Gov. Jeb Bush criticized his brother's administration for returning 12 suspected boat hijackers to Cuba to face prison.</p> <p>Although the governor said he has not spoken directly to President Bush, he told The Miami Herald in an interview for Friday's editions that he has asked several high-level officials in the administration to review what happened.</p>

Repatriated Cubans spell boatload of trouble for Bush July 31, 2003 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement It was not just that the Bush administration dispatched 12 Cubans who hijacked a boat to the tender mercies of Fidel Castro. What inflamed pro-Bush Cuban Americans in south Florida is that the United States negotiated with the communist dictator to impose 10-year prison sentences. This sudden agreement between Washington and Havana could cost George W. Bush a second term. President Bush's Cuban-American friends consider this a de facto trial, resulting in incarceration by a police state. ''This is a very pained community,''...

WASHINGTON -- It was not just that the Bush administration dispatched 12 Cubans who hijacked a boat to the tender mercies of Fidel Castro. What inflamed pro-Bush Cuban-Americans in south Florida is that the United States negotiated with the communist dictator to impose 10-year prison sentences. This sudden agreement between Washington and Havana could cost George W. Bush a second term. President Bush's Cuban-American friends consider this a de facto trial, resulting in incarceration by a police state. "This is a very pained community," Republican Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart told me. Sharing the pain of his Cuban constituents and known to...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Twelve Cubans who tried to sail to Florida in a 1951 Chevy truck ingeniously converted into an amphibious craft are making a second attempt to get to the United States, this time as political refugees. The group, repatriated to communist-run Cuba by the U.S. Coast Guard (news - web sites) 10 days ago, applied on Wednesday for political asylum at the U.S. Interest Section in Havana. "This is our last hope. We want to go. We love our country very much, but there is no future here," said Michael Lau Valdez, 25. The nine men, two women...

Cubans made Chevy a cradle for their hopes BY TERE FIGUERAStfigueras@herald.com 7/27/2003 They were family, friends and neighbors who lived on the same block just outside Havana. For weeks, they labored on a daring secret plan to flee to the United States.But even before they set off, suspicious Cuban police got wind of their plan. The officers searched the homes of the 12 -- nine men, two women and a child -- looking for oars, a boat, sails, anything that would finger the group as would-be rafters. They found nothing.They never thought to look at the truck.''It was right there...

Cuban migrants try to reach the US coast in Florida in a 1951 Chevrolet truck, converted into a marine vessel with air-filled drums for flotation and a propeller driven off the driveshaft. Photo: Reuters A group of 11 Cubans, who tried to flee to the United States by sea in a 1951 Chevrolet truck, have expressed a sense of loss that they were returned home while their beloved truck lies at the bottom of the ocean. The 11, plus a young boy, were intercepted by the US Coast Guard on Thursday, 65 kilometres off the US coast as they...

Rift Growing Between Exile Groups, Elected Officials Joy-Ann Reid, Staff Writer POSTED: 5:23 p.m. EDT July 25, 2003 UPDATED: 6:58 p.m. EDT July 25, 2003 MIAMI -- Since the 1980s, when then Vice President George H.W. Bush swore in 10,000 Cuban exiles as American citizens at Miami's Orange Bowl, South Florida's Cuban exile community has provided a solid voting bloc for the Republican Party, whose hard-line policies toward the Fidel Castro government are looked on favorably by the approximately 400,000 Cuban expatriates living in the state. But recent rifts with the George W. Bush administration may put the Cuban-American vote...

U.S. Coast Guard pulls over Chevy truck in Straits of Florida 12 Cubans aboard &#9552; 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...

The Bush administration's decision this week to send 12 Cuban migrants back to the island has unleashed a wave of anger among exile leaders who, for the first time, are openly questioning their commitment to the Republican president. The fury has created a public feud between top leaders of the influential Cuban American National Foundation, who say their loyalty to Bush in the 2000 election is proving worthless, and Miami-Dade County's three Republican Cuban-American members of Congress, who have aligned themselves closely with the president. The spat has dominated the Spanish-language airwaves in South Florida for two days, with foundation...

KEY WEST - Over the past four decades, Cubans desperate to reach the United States have crossed the perilous Florida Straits in just about anything that floats: Surfboards. Inner tubes. Homemade rafts.But it's hard to top the latest entrant in the maritime scramble: A 1951 Chevy flatbed truck.The green truck, tires still on, was mounted on a pontoon made of 55-gallon drums.The makeshift vessel even sported a propeller, attached to the truck's driveshaft, and was cruising along at a leisurely eight miles an hour, driver behind the wheel, when it was spotted by a U.S. government plane 40 miles south...

The United States Monday repatriated 15 Cubans who had been aboard a Cuban government boat they seized at gunpoint last week and was later intercepted in international waters off the Bahamas by the U.S. Coast Guard. The return came after the Cuban government promised that anyone found guilty in the case would receive no more than ten years in prison. The return of the 15 Cubans followed intensive bilateral contacts climaxed by a diplomatic note from Cuba pledging the ten-year limit on any jail terms handed down in the case. The affair began last Tuesday, when 11 Cuban men and...

UK asylum seekers to be repatriated in huge airlift By Colin Brown and Jo Dillon 26 May 2002 Cabinet plans are being prepared for the RAF to airlift hundreds of Afghan asylum seekers from Britain back to Afghanistan in an attempt to answer growing criticism of the failure to halt illegal entrants to Britain. The Government will face a renewed attack this week over new asylum figures for the first quarter of the year, showing the crisis is getting worse, with a near-record rise in applications to a total of 78,000 a year and a fall in removals to 1,000...