Cuban smuggling on rise

BY JAY WEAVER

 Lost in the custody clash over Elian Gonzalez is the dangerous trade of
 smuggling Cubans to the United States.

 The 6-year-old Cuban boy could be the illegal industry's poster child. Elian lost
 his mother, stepfather and nine others when their boat capsized in the Straits of
 Florida during Thanksgiving week. The only lucky survivors in this suspected
 smuggling operation were two other adults and Elian, who was miraculously
 rescued from an inner tube by fishermen.

 The boy is now caught in an extraordinary custody dispute between his Cuban
 father, who wants him returned home, and his Miami relatives, who want to keep
 him here. But U.S. diplomats are not expected to bring up Elian or alien
 smuggling when they meet with their Cuban counterparts Monday in Havana to
 talk about migration agreements.

 Migrant smuggling, however, will undoubtedly hover over the talks.

 ``Alien smuggling is the toothache in [U.S. migration] policy,'' said a State
 Department official who did not want to be identified. ``It doesn't kill you, but it
 nags you. It's like when you make a law, and the criminals figure out a way to get
 around it.''

 An increasing number of Cubans are expected to make the treacherous trip
 across the Straits of Florida, mostly in smuggling operations, U.S. Coast Guard
 and Border Patrol officials predict.

 The phenomenon is a byproduct of U.S. migration policy with roots in the rafter
 crisis of 1994.

 That year, more than 37,000 Cuban migrants were intercepted at sea -- with most
 held in a huge refugee city at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. To
 stop the flow, the United States made a commitment to grant at least 20,000
 visas annually to Cubans. The following year, the Clinton administration also
 agreed to return refugees picked up at sea -- unless they could prove they had a
 ``well-founded fear of persecution'' in Cuba.

 NUMBERS SWELL

 The unprecedented migration accords worked, for a while. Just 1,400 Cuban
 migrants were intercepted at sea from 1995 to 1997. But last year, illegal
 smuggling took hold after federal officials began allowing migrants who reached
 U.S. soil to apply for residency.

 Those who make it to shore can change their status from ``wet-foot'' to ``dry-foot''
 aliens, qualifying for residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act. That law was
 adopted in 1966 to accommodate hundreds of thousands of Cubans who fled
 Castro's revolution.

 With the dry-foot policy and adjustment act on their side, the number of Cubans
 who reached U.S. shore totaled 2,048 this year -- more than double last year's
 total of 916. An estimated 80 percent were believed smuggled across.

 Cubans on both sides of the straits routinely plot smuggling operations in small,
 fast boats that can sometimes elude the Coast Guard. But the smugglers, trying
 to maximize profit by charging $1,000 to $5,000 a head, often overload their craft,
 with little thought given to safety.

 COMMUNITY CONCERN

 U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Dan Geoghegan compared these illegal operations
 to drug smuggling, but stressed that enforcement is more difficult because of
 sympathetic Cuban exiles in Miami.

 ``This is a difficult line of work in a nearly impossible environment,'' Geoghegan
 said. ``The community has little tolerance for immigration enforcement, because it
 has such a large concentration of foreign nationals.''

 The enforcement issue blew up in the face of the Coast Guard last June during a
 notorious episode known as the ``Surfside Six.''

 Trying to get six Cuban migrants to turn themselves in off Surfside Beach, Coast
 Guard crews opened up fire hoses on the rafters' boat. Once the Cubans had
 scattered in the surf, the Coast Guard moved their vessels to block the swimmers
 from making a dash for shore. A Coast Guard crewman pepper-sprayed one
 migrant who was treading water.

 The confrontation was aired prominently again and again on TV news, giving the
 Coast Guard a big black eye.

 POLICY DEBATE

 While the Surfside Six incident was not an organized smuggling operation, it
 nonetheless highlighted the wet-foot, dry-foot policy that seems to fuel the
 smuggling trade.

 It also prompted a lawsuit and fiery debate.

 In August, Francisco Abreu sued the U.S. government in an effort to force it to
 stop repatriating Cuban nationals to their homeland once they get within the
 12-mile limit of U.S. territorial waters.

 Abreu's wife and child were intercepted at sea by the Coast Guard and returned to
 Cuba. He had planned to seek asylum for them when they reached the United
 States.

 The federal government asked U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler to dismiss his
 suit and asylum claim. The judge has yet to make a decision.

 Max Castro, a senior research associate at the University of Miami's Dante B.
 Fascell North-South Center, said Abreu's legal challenge to the U.S. repatriation
 policy is not the answer.

 He said the United States should treat migrants who reach land the same way as
 those intercepted at sea. In other words, if dry-foot aliens cannot qualify for
 political asylum, they also should be returned to Cuba.

 ``Otherwise, you are promoting the smuggling business, inviting these dangerous
 journeys and provoking these confrontations between the refugees and Coast
 Guard,'' Castro said. ``There shouldn't be two standards based on who has the
 fastest boat.''

 Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and
 Cuban-American Studies, agrees with his UM colleague that U.S. migration
 policy has flaws. But he stopped short of recommending an end to the dry-foot
 policy and adjustment act.

 ``I can't accept the idea of sending someone back who is trying to reach the
 United States,'' Suchlicki said. ``The status quo is not fine, but I don't see how
 this can be refined.''