On Cuba

It's not something that tends to come up in our daily conversations, but a quick search of the blog shows that I have mentioned a few times that I grew up in Miami.  In particular, my folks moved to Miami from New York City when I was three.  It was 1957.  We lived in SW Miami from age four to nine and then in NW Miami from then to a year after I graduated high school.  After that I lived in south Florida, first Ft. Lauderdale and then Boca Raton, for another 8 years before moving here to Central Florida in 1982. 

I say that because living in that part of Florida in those years means that I grew up with a lot of friends whose families had fled Cuba.  A few were very close friends.  It was routine, regular life to see TV news stories of people making it across the Florida straits and making it to land in the most flimsy vessels imaginable. Everyone knew of vessels and family friends who didn't make it; whose boats went down along the way.  Once I was grown up and making a decent salary, I was able to fish saltwater from a boat and not just piers and bridges.  I met people who had run into these floating acts of desperation and called the Coast Guard to help, staying with the floats until the cutter arrived.  There was a saying that I heard that I'll never forget: the sharks are well fed in the Florida Straits.  A lot of people became shark food trying to escape Castro.  

Somewhere along the way, I had drummed into my head that if the Coast Guard found people offshore, they were not obligated to bring them ashore, but if someone got into shallow enough water that they could stand in and touch bottom, that was the US and they were granted asylum.  Yes, they ordinarily were sent to Customs and Immigration detention centers, but that was essentially a formality.  And, yes, it's a special dispensation for Cubans, originally aimed at how to treat those found walking into cities in the Keys or South Florida.

This is all lead in to the story that yesterday Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas delivered a message to Cubans (and Haitians) who might be tempted to make the crossing to Florida to escape the hellholes they're living in.  He told them not to try it.  Don't come because we'll find you offshore and we'll send you back. Secretary Mayorkas is a Cuban refugee himself.  Is he trying to prevent another flood of boats or is he trying to keep Cubans out of the country? 

“DHS is working with our partners to support the Haitian and Cuban people. The Coast Guard along with our state, local, and federal partners are monitoring any activity that may indicate increases in unsafe and irregular maritime migration in the Florida straits, including unpermitted vessel departures from Florida to Cuba.

The time is never right to attempt migration by sea. To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking. Allow me to be clear, if you take to the sea you will not come to the United States,” he said.

The Florida Straits are a hostile place.  It's all deep; off the western end of the keys, closer to Cuba, it's 1500 feet deep; farther north, east of the keys it's 500 to 800 feet deep.  The straits carry the bulk of the water in the Gulf stream north along Florida's east coast.  There is some additional flow west out of the Caribbean that joins and flows north with it.  I recall in the late '70s or maybe 1980 that Haitians would make it west along the northern side of their country and then Cuba before being swept north.  Once off the Florida coast, they'd try to beach themselves on the east coast.   

I'd hate to see Cubans and Haitians trying to make the trip, but I wouldn't threaten them with not getting into Florida.  Rather, I'd get the Coast Guard to rescue them and bring them to the US.  And Secretary Mayorkas had better know that he's breaking the law if he deports anyone who makes it to water they can stand up in. 

If you want to learn more and understand what the subjugation of the Cuban people is like, let me point you to Babalu Blog, fourth from the top of my links column.  Or start here.