Miami's Cuban Connection

Anti-Embargo Meeting in Washington Today

Members of Congress opposed to the U.S. embargo of Cuba are meeting with administration officials in Washington today to discuss what they perceive to be new restrictions on religious travel to Cuba, said Matthew Specht, a spokesman for Congressman Jeff Flake. Members of the Cuba Working Group are planning to meet with representatives from the departments of state and treasury. More than 100 members of congress and more than a dozen senators have sent letters to Treasury Secretary John Snow over the past two weeks complaining about tightened restrictions on religious travel and asking for explanations.

Bahamian Removed From Jail Security after Journalist Beating

The Miami Herald's Washington Correspondent Lesley Clark sends this exclusive report:

Joshua Sears, the Bahamas ambassador to the United Statesmet late Tuesday with U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart to brief them on the situation. The meeting had been scheduled weeks ago, Sears said, calling the timing, "a matter of fate." Sears said the island took its time with the case because officials are worried that releasing detainees could spur more emigrants to flee to the Bahamas. "That is one of the factors that caused us to consider this case in a very deliberate fashion," Sears said. "That is a constant fear." He noted that after the election in Haiti, nearly 1,000 Haitians fled to the Bahamas. He said the island is constrained by treaties that require the government to repatriate anyone who does not qualify for international protection. But, he said, the government found that the two dentists qualified under humanitarian grounds. Ros-Lehtinen pressed Sears on the investigation into the beating last month of a Spanish language TV journalist from Miami who was reporting from the Immigration Detention Center on Carmichael Road in Nassau. Sears said the case is still under investigation, but that one employee was immediately removed from security detail. She also pressed him on improving conditions for detainees. Sears said the island is building a reception center for families to meet with their relatives, is beefing up medical conditions and improving food at the detention center. But he noted that overcrowding at the center is "unavoidable at times."

Bahamas Releases Cuban Dentists

Two Cuban dentists who have been held in the Bahamian prison for almost a year were released into U.S. custody today, according to a statement released by U.S. Rep. Connie Mack. David Gonzalez-Mejias and Marialis Darias Mesa are expected to arrive in Miami today, Mack's office said. For the past few months, Mack and other congressional representatives had been pushing the Bahamian government to release them. "The sun rises for everybody. Today it rose for my wife and I," said Ihovany Hernandez, Marialis's husband, who lives in Florida.

Mel: Bring All Cuban Migrants To Land

   As the Bush administration begins a process to review the controversial wet-foot, dry-foot policy, U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez said the best solution would be to bring all Cuban migrants to land and then determine if they can migrate to the U.S. or go back to the island. "You bring them to land...everybody's dry-foot and then you deal with them in a fair and open way," Martinez said at a news conference at the Biltmore Hotel Friday. "I think that the human rights violations that are seen in Cuba make it immoral for us to be repatriating Cubans the way we are doing now."

Democrat: Bush Brushes Cuba Aside

New Democrat Network consultant Joe Garcia’s take on the meeting between Cuban American leaders and Bush administration officials in Washington today:

“What’s sad is that Ramon Saul Sanchez had to go on a hunger strike to get a meeting with policy makers about immigration in a community whose representatives are overwhelmingly Republican, who votes overwhelmingly Republican, and who has heavily supported this Republican presidency.”

Big Meeting Coming Up

Cuban American leaders are scheduled to meet with top Bush administration officials Wednesday to discuss US Cuba migration policy and the controversial wet-foot dry-foot policy. Washington insiders say the administration is unlikely to revoke the policy, which was started under Bill Clinton’s Democratic administration. U.S. Congressional representatives have long called for the policy to be abrogated. Exile leaders are hoping to convince the administration to make the policy more humane. For example, they will push for U.S. officials to give migrants some legal representation, even if it’s by phone, once they are picked up by the Coast Guard.

Will 15 Cubans Return?

A U.S. judge’s ruling in favor of 15 Cuban migrants who were repatriated after being found on the old 7-mile bridge now puts the ball in Castro’s court. Will the Cuban government let them leave?

The migrants have allies in high places.

Michael Parmly, head of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, was in Miami last week for personal reasons, but managed to visit in with some of the Cuban American leaders, said State Department spokesman Eric Watnik. A Capitol Hill source said Parmly met with U.S. Congressional representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and expressed concern about the 15 Cubans who were repatriated after they were found on a segment of the old 7-mile bridge in the Florida Keys. Parmly told congressional reps that he’d help the Cubans migrate legally if and when they approach the interest section, the source said. Watnik declined to elaborate on Parmly’s meetings.

The Coast Guard Hesitated

Fifteen Cuban migrants picked up at an abandoned bridge were being brought ashore in the Florida Keys when -- in a span of 20 minutes -- the Coast Guard's legal experts in Miami had second thoughts and ordered the boat to halt, Coast Guard logs reveal.

The logs, released by the Coast Guard in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Miami Herald’s Alfonso Chardy, mark the first time the federal government publicly acknowledges it waffled on what to do soon after the migrants were found in the pre-dawn darkness of Jan. 4, on a piling of the Old Flagler Bridge near Marathon.

The entries from the Coast Guard station in Marathon to sector headquarters in Key West expose the unfolding drama -- and dilemma -- of the most controversial Cuban migrant rescue since the wet-foot, dry-foot policy took effect more than a decade ago when Cuba and the United States struck a migration deal to end a rafter exodus.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/13995697.htm