MIAMI, May 15 (UPI) -- The Cuban migration that started with President Fidel Castro's rise to power in 1959 has become a saga without end.
The adventure is full of twists and turns starting with the Pedro Pan flights of Cuban children to Miami in the early 1960s, the Mariel boatlift of 1980 and most definitely the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 and its wet-foot, dry-foot adjustment in 1996.
The saga also illustrates the vagaries of U.S. immigration policy, especially since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which has made even visiting, much less immigration, more difficult and chancy for people from Muslim nations. Haitians also see it as a double standard.
The latest two chapters of the Cuba saga both occurred in the Florida Keys Thursday. First, six Cubans tried to make it to the United States aboard a rickety 14-foot boat. Four of them surrendered to the Coast Guard two miles off shore but the other two remained in the water for more than two hours, hoping to make it to land.
They were swimming against the tide, and had to give themselves up. They are likely to be returned to Cuba because their feet remained wet.
Three others last week pulled the same trick, and made it, riding ashore with the tide and the currents as the Coast Guard watched helplessly.
Presumably, they would be able to remain in the United States because their feet became dry when they reached shore. But there was a catch. Two of them were charged in Key West, Fla., federal court with assault on Coast Guard personnel for allegedly swinging at them with a knife and a machete.
If they are convicted, they could serve up to 20 years. A conviction will also mean deportation after they serve their sentence.
A third man on that attempt was captured at sea and remains aboard a
Coast Guard cutter, his future uncertain. He could be used as a witness against the two defendants, and that might earn him permission to stay in the United States.
The other man who made it ashore was not charged; he will be processed in Miami and most likely released, under U.S. policy.
That policy was first developed under President Lyndon Johnson in 1966 and is known as the Cuban Adjustment Act.
It was adopted by Congress Nov. 2 of that year and its main provision was to give Cuban immigrants special status to treat them as political refugees and to grant them automatic political asylum. It was deep in the cold war, and Cuba's communist government was enough to push the act across.
Under that act, refugees are taken to the Krome Avenue Processing Center west of Miami for a few days then released into the community. A year later, they are granted permanent residence.
In 1980, the Mariel Boatlift -- in which Castro opened the doors to migrants that wanted to leave and 125,000 arrived in Miami -- changed the nature of the city forever.
Another flood of migrants threatened to inundate Florida in 1996, but President Bill Clinton reached an agreement with the Cuban government that resulted in the wet-foot, dry-foot rule, along with the acceptance of 2,000 Cubans into the United States a year.
No longer would rafters and boat people who were spotted at sea be picked up and taken to Florida or allowed to continue. Those who were interdicted at sea were immediately taken back to Cuba.
But those who made it to Florida's vast coastline without being detected are allowed to stay.
Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits are not happy with the results.
"They (refugees) realize that if they're sent back, they face very grave consequences, even death," said Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, R-Fla.
He said the policy is unacceptable, and the only answer to the problem is that "Castro must go."
He blamed the policy on the Clinton administration and said he hoped the Bush administration would change it.
Cuban Parliamentary President Ricardo Alarcon says "immigration has been one of the oldest weapons used by the United States in its dirty war against Cuba."
He said the United States is trying to foment a "migratory crisis." He said it is refusing and restricting visas for legal emigration to the United States, while receiving those who travel illegally and reach U.S. soil with open arms in accordance with the Cuban Adjustment Act.
The situation is especially dicey right now because of the Cuban crackdown on dissidents. Seventy-five people were sentenced to as long as 27 years in prison and three men who tried to hijack a Havana Harbor ferry died in front of a firing squad.
The United States didn't improve relations this week when it expelled 14 diplomats for alleged spying.
But perhaps the people who hate the Cuban Adjustment Act the most are the Haitians who have made it to this country and are being deported. They have nothing like the Cuban Adjustment Act.
They face the same visa restrictions as any other national group -- you can't get in the United States without one. One exception is political asylum and proof that if they were repatriated, they would be persecuted by the government.
The U.S. government insists the Haitians come here for economic and not political reasons, and the Cubans' reasons are the opposite. One reason is that Cuba is a communist nation and Haiti is not.
Another reason is that the Cuban-American community in Miami and some parts of New Jersey represent a powerful voting bloc that is currently the property of the Republican Party, although they are frequently courted by Democrats.
The Haitians have not accumulated the numbers to become a force in national politics.
Haitian immigrants to Florida have waged an angry debate over the issue for decades with no success.
Officials from Muslim nations have also voiced opposition to the tough immigration policies implemented after Sept. 11, which no longer allow anyone to just show up at a port of entry and seek political asylum. Now visitors from certain Middle East and Muslim nations are required to register within a few days after their arrival.
