Car-boat Cubans get chance to pursue U.S. asylum
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This craft, fashioned from a 1959 Buick, was Luis Grass's second improvised boat.
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MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- Three Cuban migrants who tried to sail to Florida in a vintage U.S. truck and a car converted into boats won a chance on Wednesday to pursue their request for political asylum in the United States, a Cuban exile group said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security agreed to send the trio to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to await a review of their asylum requests, according to the Cuban exile group that went to court seeking to prevent their repatriation to Cuba.
The trio -- Luis Grass, his wife, Isora, and their 4-year-old son, Angel Luis -- were among 11 Cubans who tried to cross the Florida Straits last week in a boat made from a green 1959 Buick automobile.
The Grass family and another passenger on the Buick boat had tried the same trip in a modified 1951 Chevy truck in July, only to be picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard at sea and sent home.
The Coast Guard said it intercepted the group on the Buick craft on February 3 about 45 miles (70 km) off the north coast of Cuba and took them aboard a Coast Guard cutter.
The other eight Buick boaters were returned to Cuba on Tuesday under U.S. immigration policy that generally calls for repatriating Cuban migrants intercepted at sea.
But the Department of Homeland Security gave the Grass family a reprieve, agreeing instead to send them to the Guantanamo base to review their claims that they would be persecuted if sent back to Cuba, according to the Democracy Movement, the exile group that sought to block their repatriation.
"A letter came from Homeland Security in Washington saying the people had credible fears of persecution and they are going to be taken to Guantanamo," group leader Ramon Saul Sanchez said.
The Grass family had applied for visas to emigrate to the United States, relatives said.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment. The Coast Guard, which earlier acknowledged it had the trio aboard a Coast Guard cutter, declined to say whether they were en route to Guantanamo.
In Havana, Grass' relatives anxiously awaited news of their fate.
"We are very happy, at least they won't be sent back here," said Eduardo Perez Grass, nephew of Luis Grass, after hearing reports the family was bound for the naval base.
The Coast Guard sank both the car and the truck because they posed a navigational hazard to other vessels.
Copyright 2004
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
