HAVANA -- (AP) -- U.S. and Cuban officials held regular talks Monday on better cooperation to halt the increased smuggling of illegal immigrants which Havana blames for a growing number of deaths at sea.

 "We already have been working together on anti-smuggling efforts,'' said James Carragher, the new State Department coordinator for Cuban affairs.

 "The United States Department of Justice is committed to upholding the law against these despicable people who would carry out human smuggling, and we will indict and seek to convict them,'' he said at the conclusion of the talks.

 Neither Carragher nor Cuban officials provided details about U.S. proposals for improved cooperation among law enforcement agencies in both countries.

 Ricardo Alarcon, head of the Cuban delegation and president of Cuba's National Assembly, told reporters Havana was aware of recent U.S. efforts to arrest and prosecute migrant smugglers.

 But, he said, ``much more energy is needed in applying the law and making it more effective.'' Migrant smugglers charge Cubans up to $8,000 each to take them to the United States illegally.

 Alarcon said he also restated Cuban demands for the United States to erase the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act that he claimed encouraged risky and illegal migration.

 Alarcon said the law ``violates the spirit'' of 1994 and 1995 Cuba-U.S. migration accords that were a focus of the Monday talks.

 The act allows any Cuban citizen permitted to stay in the United States for a year to then apply for permanent residency.

 It does not provide specifics for dealing with illegal Cuban immigrants.

 But current U.S. policy allows most Cubans who reach American soil by illegal means to avoid repatriation and to eventually apply, under the act, for U.S. residency.

 Most U.S.-bound Cubans picked up at sea by the Coast Guard are returned to their homeland.

 Havana blames U.S. policy for the deaths of hundreds of Cubans at sea, most recently 30 who perished when their boat capsized in the Florida Straits in mid-November.

 Carragher said he rejected any discussion of the U.S. law during the talks, which he said were held only to assess how the both countries were enforcing migration
 accords.

 ``Cubans are looking to leave a situation in which they can not practice freely human rights,'' Carragher said, noting what he termed ``the continued failure of the Cuban economy to give the opportunities that a free market can.''

 The talks are held every six months under accords signed after a 1994 immigration crisis when 30,000 Cubans took to the sea in U.S.-bound boats and rafts. Both
 countries subsequently agreed to work toward the orderly and legal migration of Cubans who want to live in the United States.

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