THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 10, 1995 TAG: 9505100488
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
Over bitter protests from Cuban-Americans, the United States returned 13 Cuban boat people to their homeland Tuesday, the first refugees to be sent back under a new policy that ended 35 years of open arms.
``This is a day of infamy for the United States,'' said Francisco ``Pepe'' Hernandez, president of the politically powerful Cuban American National Foundation and a former Marine.
The Cuban men, ages 28 to 45, were picked up from two wooden boats by a passing cruise ship near the Cayman Islands last Thursday. They were transferred to the Portsmouth-based Coast Guard cutter Northland about 10 p.m. Friday north of Haiti and transferred again about 8 a.m. Sunday to the Florida-based cutter Durable.
Tuesday, the Coast Guard left them at Bahia de Cabanas, a Cuban naval base about 40 miles from Havana.
The Clinton administration incensed Cuban exiles last week by announcing that refugee rafters would be returned instead of routinely admitted to the United States as they had been since Fidel Castro took power.
The U.S. policy was changed to head off an exodus of Cuban refugees to U.S. shores like the one that occurred last year.
Under a new visa process, a minimum of 20,000 Cubans a year can legally leave their country for the United States. They must apply in Cuba. Five U.S. diplomatic officers met the refugees in Cuba to explain the visa process.
The State Department said Cuban authorities agreed to detain the refugees no longer than 24 hours to screen them for past criminal activity. But exiles in Miami feared a future of persecution and isolation.
Cuban-born Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said, ``Castro has clearly won with this latest battle.'' by CNB