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An Absurd Policy
Sunday, January 08, 2006   By: Juan Paxety

Wet foot/dry foot and the Seven Mile Bridge

An absurd US policy just got even more absurd.  Proving they are both equal opportunity idiots, the Republicans are continuing a Democrat policy begun during the Clinton administration called Wet Foot/Dry Foot. Despite the clear language of the law passed by Congress in 1966 promising Cubans who escape the terrors of fidel's island workers' paradise, the Wet Foot/ Dry Foot policy makes the U.S. an accessory in fidel's tyranny. President Clinton set out his views of Cuban's escaping in this letter from 1994.

Mr. Clinton, as apparently does Mr. Bush, considers Cuban refugees (as defined by the law) to be illegal immigrants - people to be returned to the island hell.

Now the absurdity of the policy is illustrated by, well, absurdity.  The Coast Guard found some escaping Cubans over the weekend. Not in the middle of the sea, but on the Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys. The Coast Guard does not consider the bridge to be dry land, so the Cubans are being kidnapped and returned to fidel.

The Democracy Movement organized a vigil in opposition to the policy on Saturday. (Thanks to Net For Cuba)

THE DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT IS ORGANIZING A VIGIL WITH THE RELATIVES OF THE RAFTERS IN THE MCARTHUR CAUSEWAY FOR 11:00 AM THIS Saturday TO PROTEST THE NEW INTERPRETATION OF THE WET FOOT DRY FOOT POLICY

Miami, January 6, 2006 - In what appears to be a second instance of violation of the wet foot dry foot policy by US authorities themselves in the cases of Cuban rafters, the government is about to repatriate 15 rafters that the Coast Guard found on a pillar of the Seven Miles Bridge leading to Key West, according to the relatives’ versions.  The rafters are currently being held on a US Coast Guard cutter.

Only a few days ago, another group of rafters was repatriated after they were picked up by the US authorities on the structure of the lighthouse that serves the navigation heading to Key West, Florida, even though the lighthouse has been anchored on the continental platform of the Untied States since 1873

The Democracy Movement is organizing a Vigil by the relatives that will take place this Saturday at 11:00 AM on the bridge next to the US Coast Guard Station in the Macarthur Causeway at the entrance to Miami Beach.  The vigil is to request from the authorities that they revise the far-stretched new interpretation of the wet foot, and grant freedom to the rafters.

For additional information, please call Ramon Saul Sanchez or Norman del Valle at 305-264-7200.

Alfredo at El Cafe Cuban has more here, here and here. CB at killcastroblog reports more here.

 

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