Is a bridge dry land?

That is the debating point in this dispute between Immigration and Pro-Cuban activists. It stems from the arrival on the US shores of 15 illegal Cuban immigrants last week.

MIAMI (AP) -- Cuban-American community activists and politicians lambasted the U.S. government's decision to repatriate 15 Cubans picked up from the base of an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys and urged officials to review the country's "wet-foot dry foot" policy.

An attorney for the families of the migrants said he planned to file a lawsuit Tuesday asking a federal judge to allow the group to return, while a local activist vowed to continue a three-day hunger strike protesting the treatment of the Cubans.

The migrants, including a 2-year-old and a 13-year-old, were sent back to Cuba Monday after U.S. officials concluded that the section of the partially collapsed bridge where they landed did not count as dry land under the government's policy because it was no longer connected to any of the Keys.

"Through a legal review, the migrants were determined to be feet-wet and processed in accordance with standard procedure," Coast Guard spokesman, Petty Officer Dana Warr, said in a statement.

This wet foot/dry land policy stems from a change made during the Clinton years. Up till the mid-nineties all illegal Cuban immigrants who made it to US shores were allowed in the country.

This of course led to the Mariel boatlift debacle in 1980. President Carter allowed over 100,000 Cubans into the country. Fidel Castro using this as a chance to empty his jails of criminals.

Many South Floridians and newspaper editorialists(The Palm Beach Post among them) pointed to the double standard in regards to Cuban immigrants and other illegals. Saying it was unfair that Cubans got better treatment. That helped to bring about the policy change, one that doesn't make anyone happy. Typical for President Clinton, try to please everyone but do the reverse.

Its not an easy issue. Castro is a dictator whose human rights record is horrible. During the Cold War we never turned away those fleeing Communist regimes. Those pointing to the double standard would also point out the other repressive regimes in the Carribean or in Central America and the people fleeing those countries. Why admit one group and not the others? Or better yet treat them all the same, return them to the country they came from.

There isn't a easy answer. We need to protect our borders, but handing people back over to Castro should leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth.

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