Mariel boat lift refugees, who were part of 125,000 Cubans allowed by
                 President Fidel Castro to sail to Florida in a makeshift flotilla, are an exception to
                 the high court's decision because they are not considered to be in the United
                 States, according to U.S. District Judge James Brady.

                 He ruled Thursday in the case of Juan Fernandez-Fajardo, who was detained
                 indefinitely after his 18th arrest between 1980 and 1989. He sued the U.S.
                 immigration agency in April for release from the East Feliciana Parish Jail in
                 Clinton.

                 "Fernandez has never entered, or been admitted, to the U.S.," Brady wrote. "He
                 is regarded as having been stopped at the border all the time."

                 Fernandez-Fajardo claimed his indefinite detention was unconstitutional and that
                 he should be set free while awaiting a deportation that may never come.

                 Fernandez-Faja rdo is entitled to have his case reviewed periodically by
                 immigration officials, but not to any constitutional rights conferred by the
                 Supreme Court ruling, Brady said.

                 The head of an immigration lawyers association said the ruling may seem unfair,
                 but a judge's job is to interpret the law.

                 "Sometimes the law is harsh," said Socheat Chea, Southeast chapter president
                 of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Atlanta, Georgia.

                 Fernandez-Fajardo came to the United States on May 30, 1980, as part of the
                 huge boat lift of refugees from Mariel, Cuba, to South Florida ports.

                 The federal government detained thousands of the refugees but later paroled
                 them because Cuba does not accept deportees from the United States.

                 Allowing Fernadez-Fajardo and others like him to stay in the country does not
                 mean they are considered legally here, Brady wrote.

                 His confinement in East Feliciana "is potentially permanent," Brady wrote.

                 Fernandez-Fajardo, citing a June 28 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, claimed that
                 potentially permanent confinement is unconstitutional.

                 The Supreme Court ruled that immigrants who have served criminal sentences
                 cannot be detained indefinitely just because the U.S. Immigration and
                 Naturalization Service is having trouble deporting them.

                 Louisiana jails hold about 2,000 detainees, and the ruling affects about 730
                 detainees in a five-state area, the bulk of whom are in Louisiana, said Paige
                 Rockett, a spokeswoman for the U.S. immigration agency in New Orleans.

                 The ruling did not specifically address the fate of Mariel Cubans, though,
                 leaving judges such as Brady to address the question as it arises in district
                 courts around the country.

                 Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara Avery Hingle said the high court's ruling applies
                 only to people who are legally in the country and facing deportation -- not aliens
                 who are considered detained at the border.

                 Brady agreed with Hingle's argument. Since the court did not specify what to do
                 with Mariel Cubans, he is left to rely on guidance from other cases, he wrote.

                 Before the Supreme Court ruling in June, courts around the country ruled that
                 Mariel Cubans are not being detained indefinitely because of a system of
                 periodic reviews that could set them free, Brady wrote.

                 And, given those reviews, many of those judges have held that prolonged
                 detention of Mariel Cubans is legal, Brady wrote.

                 "This is so because the court has long distinguished between aliens who have
                 entered the U.S. and aliens who have not yet entered the country," Brady wrote.
                 "This constitutional protection does not extend to those who are merely on the
                 threshold of initial entry."

                   Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.