By YVES COLON
             Herald Staff Writer

             The weather is Dan Geoghegan's crystal ball -- how he can tell whether trouble is
             heading his way.

             Calm seas -- like those last weekend -- are ideal conditions for launching small
             vessels. The assistant chief in the U.S. Border Patrol office in Miami, Geoghegan
             knows that's when he can expect heavy traffic from Cuba and Haiti.

             In the past three days, his beeper has gone off eight times, as his agents brought in
             83 Cubans and 23 Haitians trying to get into this country illegally. In one 72-hour
             period in December, they picked up 82 undocumented immigrants between West
             Palm Beach and Key West.

             ``I've been busy at Christmas, I've been busy in the fall and I've been busy in the
             summer,'' Geoghegan said. ``I just didn't think it was going to be that hectic.''

             This last surge was no fluke. Geoghegan expects 1999 to be a banner year. Cuban
             refugees from the 1994 wave now settled in Florida, he believes, are hiring
             smugglers to bring over their families. Hai

             tians established here since the 1970s also are helping relatives, in either their
             homeland or the Bahamas.

             Experts on immigration say other factors also are contributing to the latest wave:
             Haiti's economy is dying. Cuba's is on the ropes, and economists are expecting
             negative growth this year.

             ``All the country wants to come here,'' said Enrique Restano, a recent Cuban
             arrival who landed at Marathon on Dec. 28 with five others.

             Instead of letting unrest build up, experts say, Cuban officials are turning a blind
             eye to the outgoing boats -- or may even be profiting from the exodus.

             ``It's not one of their top priorities to stop people,'' said Dario Moreno, an
             associate professor of political science at Florida International University. ``If a
             few hundred people are leaving, they're not going to lose sleep over it.''

             Numbers doubled last year

             The numbers, however, are causing increasing concern on this side of the Florida
             Straits. Border Patrol agents recorded 45 Cuban landings in the last three months
             of 1998, and 112 landings the previous nine months.

             In 1997, only 24 boats made it to shore, with 209 people on board. And during
             1994, when the U.S. Coast Guard took 37,000 Cubans to the Guantanamo naval
             base, only 97 boats made it to the United States.

             In 1998, the number of Cubans and Haitians picked up at sea by the Coast Guard
             more than doubled from the year before. Coast Guard vessels intercepted 1,025
             Cubans and 1,206 Haitians at sea, compared with 406 Cubans and 587 Haitians
             in 1997.

             Unlike earlier immigrants who made the perilous journey on flimsy rafts, the latest
             arrivals are using fast vessels that can outrun Coast Guard ships. They are
             dropped at a beach somewhere along the South Florida coast, where they are
             picked up. Smugglers charge up to $8,000 for that service, which immigration
             officials call a multimillion dollar business.

             `Hope to provide opportunity'

             Still, if poor economies are pushing them out, South Florida is pulling them in with
             promises of a better life. Tugging on that rope, Geoghegan believes, are Cubans
             who were paroled in the United States in 1994. Haitians paroled from
             Guantanamo follow the same pattern.

             ``They've all been here four years, they've established themselves in the
             community, they're working, saving money and it's conceivable they could be
             funding this latest spate of smuggling activity,'' he said. ``Now that they've realized
             there is opportunity here and they hope to provide the same opportunity for the
             loved ones they left behind.''

             Some of those crossings end up in disaster. The most recent was Dec. 17, when a
             boat overloaded with 23 Cubans capsized in the Gulf Stream off Elliott Key. Eight
             people were confirmed dead, six are missing and the smuggling suspect arrested
             with the boat could face the death penalty, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

             Among the latest 83 Cubans picked up were three legal U.S. residents. Law
             enforcement agents are investigating whether or not they were hired to pick up the
             immigrants in Cuba or on Sal Cay in the Bahamas, a popular launching point.

             Boats aren't the only way the immigrants are getting in. Using fraudulent documents
             obtained from smugglers, they're also arriving at Miami International Airport every
             day, from Venezuela, Mexico, Chile and other countries.

             Those who arrive at a port of entry like MIA or the Port of Miami-Dade can file
             an application for admission, or ask for political asylum. Because of a change in
             the 1996 immigration law, however, Cubans who are picked up at the beach are
             not eligible for permanent residency, but are not deported. They spend a night at
             the Krome Detention Center, then are released.

             ``Not a great immigration deterrent,'' Geoghegan said.

             Nothing could keep Luis Albert, Jarel Gutierrez, Enrique Restano and three others
             from fleeing the town of Cardena in Matanzas. They pooled the little money they
             had -- Albert sold a small refrigerator and Gutierrez sold his house -- to buy the
             boat and an engine. They landed on Marathon on Dec. 28.

             ``If we didn't do this we wouldn't be able to come,'' said Albert, one of many new
             immigrants seeking help at the U.S. Catholic Conference refugee resettlement
             office in Little Havana. They landed in Marathon after a day and a half at sea,
             spent a night at the Krome Detention Center and were released.

             Raoul Hernandez, head of the Catholic Conference office, said two subjects
             dominated the conversation during his recent trip to Cuba: what to eat tonight, and
             how to get out.

             ``Beg, borrow or steal, that's how they do it,'' Hernandez said. ``They buy the
             boats either in pesos or dollars.''

             Overlooked by Cuban officials

             ``El Grifo,'' as the Cuban coast guard is known in Matanzas, is increasingly turning
             a blind eye to the illicit departures, newer arrivals and U.S. officials say.

             Albert, Gutierrez and Restano said a Cuban coast guard ship ignored them as they
             headed out to sea. Just last week, Geoghegan said, a Cuban coast guard ship only
             alerted a U.S. Coast Guard that two boats with 15 people aboard were heading
             to South Florida.

             In Haiti, 80 percent of the population is unemployed or underemployed. The
             country has been functioning without a prime minister or Cabinet for nearly two
             years. Without a government, it has been unable to receive foreign aid.

             There is increasing fear, following the shooting of President Rene Preval's sister in
             broad daylight last week, that the country might tumble into a violent abyss.

             Geoghegan knows conditions in Cuba and Haiti are ripe to keep his agents as
             busy as ever this year.

             ``Things are not getting better, and the [immigrants] are aware that once they get
             here, they're briefly detained, get a health screening and then they're released,'' he
             said. ``Everybody understands that.''
 

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