A Deadly Turf War Over Cuban Illegals

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Times

Friday, Jan. 18, 2008 By IOAN GRILLO/MEXICO CITY

Juan Carlos Reyna had been driving a Jeep Liberty through Cancun's wealthiest neighborhood on a sweltering December afternoon when he was surrounded by three cars. A masked man bearing a Kalashnikov rifle leaned out of the car in front of him and shot Reyna in the head. Against all odds, the Cuban-American survived and was airlifted from Mexico's Caribbean resort to a U.S. hospital, where he is fighting for his life.

Others have been less fortunate. Since June, at least four Cuban-Americans, including Reyna's brother Maximiliano, have been shot dead on Cancun's glitzy boulevards in gangland-style hits. Mexican officials allege that these killings, and those of at least five Mexicans, stem from what they say is a turf war over lucrative human smuggling routes of Cubans via Mexico to the United States.

The blood being spilled in broad daylight in Mexico's most popular international tourist spot has raised the pressure on a police force already struggling against heavily-armed drug cartels.

Senior Mexican officials blame the violence on Washington's "Wet Feet, Dry Feet" policy, in which Cubans caught at sea trying to enter the U.S. are turned back but those apprehended on U.S. soil after entering the country illegally are allowed to apply for asylum.

"This has to do with U.S. policy toward Cubans, that those who make it to territory by their own means can get automatic refugee status," Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said in a recent news conference. "People of Cuban origin who are citizens of the United States are involved, financing these people-smuggling operations, obviously with the complicity of Mexicans," he said.



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1704913,00.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. No such thing as a Cuban Illegal

The "Wet Feet, Dry Feet" policy means that a Cuban on US soil automatically gains legal residence by requesting Asylum.

That's how we treat people that come here from enemy countries.

Those that come from friendly countries, however, are screwed.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Back during the Cold War, anyone from any

Communist country automatically got political asylum, whether they were political or not.

There was a Chinese tennis player who "defected," lured not by political considerations (she admitted as much in an interview) but by opportunities to play for big bucks.

At about the same time, an East German swimmer was recruited by a state university coach and was granted political asylum. He, too, admitted in an interview that he had not suffered politically but that he didn't get along with his parents and wanted to leave them behind.

Meanwhile, genuine asylum seekers were thrown into jails for months at a time.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Not only are all Cubans who can make it to the U.S. given instant "refugee" status, they are given

instant access to a work visa, to social security, food stamps, Section 8 U.S. taxpayer-financed housing, medical care, even financial assistance for education, and many other "perks." It's for a political advantage, luring Cubans here.

This means once their feet step onto American soil they will NEVER be chased around by border guards, or the INS, and no Minute Men are going to show up to take a shot at them, not beat them to a pulp. They are IN. Then they are FINANCIALLY ASSISTED.

If this happened to any other nationality we would have been FLOODED with people from that country long ago.

As it is, people die by the hundred trying to cross the border from California to Texas yearly, and in the water trying to get to the States, from distances as far away as over 700 MILES, from Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, etc., etc., etc. As soon as they arrive here, if they are spotted, they are sent home, WITHOUT their package of benefits we hand out to EVERY Cuban without any questions asked, REGARDLESS of their past records. There are no background checks in the States: They can be violent criminals at home, and here they enter with an absolutely clean record. (Of course, some of them have become hitmen for the C.I.A., bombers, mass murderers, and even WATERGATE BURGLARS, as you know! One of the bomber/mass murderers, Orlando Bosch, even has a day of the year named for him in Miami by the Miami City Commissioners, and a street, on top of that! He was even given a pardon by the elder Bush, when he got into serious trouble with the law, and was forbidden entry here by U.S. assistant Attorney General, Joe D. Whitley)Right-wing U.S. politicians ADORE Cuban right-wing expatriots.