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Politics : About that Cuban boy, Elian -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marcos who wrote (7210)	6/9/2000 1:45:00 PM
From: jhild	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9127

Not even if Elian was a top baseball prospect would he have gotten to stay. Oh well, I guess he has to go back and live with his father. Maybe we could get the Diamondbacks to sponsor him to come over. Surely the INS dances to the money tune. Immigration Service in Fresh Cuba Controversy By Frances Kerry MIAMI (Reuters) - Seven weeks after Elian Gonzalez was snatched from his Miami relatives, the U.S. immigration service has come under fire again from Cuban exiles, this time for sending a Cuban baseball player back to the communist island. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) repatriated baseball player Andy Morales this week along with 41 other would-be migrants who were picked up at sea heading for the United States. In previous years, a string of top Cuban baseball players who defected were allowed to settle in the United States and build careers, among them New York Yankees star pitcher Orlando ''Duque'' Hernandez. But in the case of Morales, who plays for the Cuban national team, the INS indicated he had no grounds for asylum. He was treated just like any of the hundreds of Cubans caught every year trying to come illegally to the United States by raft or boat. His family and some Cuban exiles worried that Morales was going to suffer for having tried to leave the island. ``I think it's fair to say his baseball days are over in Cuba,'' said Mariela Ferretti, a spokeswoman for the hardline Cuban American National Foundation. ``Here's an individual who is going to be deprived of his God-given talent for political reasons.'' The Morales case followed exile anger with the INS over Elian Gonzalez. The 6-year-old survived a disastrous migrant voyage from Cuba last November in which his mother and 10 other people died only to get caught up in a feud between immigrant relatives in Miami who wanted to keep him in the United States and his father who wanted him back in Cuba. Miami's large Cuban exile community furiously condemned the INS when it decided in January that only his father should speak for the child and he should go back to Cuba, a decision so far backed by successive federal courts. Morales, 28, was picked up by the Coast Guard off Florida last Friday in a speedboat taking 31 passengers -- who were all sent back to Cuba -- and captained by two suspected smugglers who have been turned over to the Border Patrol. The agency sends officers out on Coast Guard cutters to interview Cubans picked up at sea to make a preliminary assessment. If they are deemed to have a valid claim, they are sent on to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in southeast Cuba for further processing, and then if found needy of asylum, sent on to a third country. Spokesman Russ Bergeron said the INS has done thousands of interviews since a 1995 accord between Washington and Havana that determined that Cubans caught at sea should be sent home unless they have a good asylum claim. INS officers seek to find specific indicators that an individual will be persecuted on return, he said, adding ``it is not good enough to say that Cuba is a communist country and I will be persecuted.'' Both Morales' father and wife predicted that Cuba's state- affiliated sports' authorities will ban or restrict Morales in retribution for trying to abandon the island. Havana says there are no reprisals for repatriated boat- people. But sporting defectors have in the past been routinely condemned by the government as ``traitors.'' Bergeron said U.S. officials in Cuba monitor returnees to ensure they are not persecuted and said that there has been no indication of repatriated Cubans suffering persecution. But the CANF ridiculed the notion that Morales would be able to pick up his life as normal. ``We have to recall the case of 'Duque' Hernandez. Look what happened to him,'' said Ferretti. Hernandez left the island on a small boat in late 1997. Reaching the Bahamas, he was admitted to the United States on a special visa as a distinguished sportsman but in fact initially turned that down, going to Costa Rica and then entering the United States so he could come to baseball as a ``free agent'' and gain a more lucrative deal. He signed a $6.6 million contract with the New York Yankees and pitched in the team's 1999 World Series victory. Before he left, Hernandez had been banned from playing baseball on the island -- under suspicion of wanting to defect since his baseball playing half-brother Livan Hernandez left in 1995 -- and was working in a mental health hospital. ``It's outrageous,'' said Ferretti of the Morales case. ``At very least he is going to be ostracized in his own country.'' The INS has made clear it simply wants to uphold the law. Since the 1995 migration accord, the number of Cuban boat people has fallen sharply. Some 1,343 Cubans were caught at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard last year compared with the more than 35,000 who left the island in 1994. But Cubans still keep trying their luck by raft or in smugglers' boats because under the so-called ``wet foot-dry foot'' policy if they reach U.S. shores they can generally stay. This has led to some recent violent encounters between would-be migrants and Coast Guard officers, with Cubans desperate to reach land brandishing knives or bombarding officers trying to stop them with tools. dailynews.yahoo.com

To: marcos who wrote (7210)	6/9/2000 3:12:00 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9127

this imho is as scarey as the totals, the way people are concentrated without space ... and what if a sizable fraction discovered the joys of country life - there would be no more country ... My understanding is that people are easiest on the environment when they live in pockets surrounded by common space that they can visit (or see from their penthouse balconies). It may not be your cup of tea, but it's supposed to be the best way to handle all these people. I, for one, do not mind living in a spacious condo in a high rise in a city. As long as I can see open space from my windows and can do some eco-tourism whenever I want, I don't need a back 40 or even a front yard. We'd better hope that more and more people feel that way as there are more and more people to accommodate. Karen

To: marcos who wrote (7210)	6/9/2000 3:14:00 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9127

this imho is as scarey as the totals, the way people are concentrated without space ... and what if a sizable fraction discovered the joys of country life - there would be no more country ... My understanding is that people are easiest on the environment when they live in pockets surrounded by common space that they can visit (or see from their penthouse balconies). It may not be your cup of tea, but it's supposed to be the best way to handle all these people. I, for one, do not mind living in a spacious condo in a high rise in a city. As long as I can see open space from my windows and can do some eco-tourism whenever I want, I don't need a back 40 or even a front yard. We'd better hope that more and more people feel that way as there are more and more people to accommodate. Otherwise you're right. There will be no more country. Karen