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Immigration: Cubans Enter U.S. at Texas-Mexico Border

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As a young man, Ferragut wanted to stay in Cuba. But he says that when he realized what little freedom he had, he decided to leave. Ferragut thinks that most Cubans have a similar realization, and says that the latest surge in Cubans leaving could be attributed to an ailing Fidel handing over power to his younger brother Raul last year.

"It's the same tyranny," Ferragut says. "Raul has all the same power; he has been part of the same crime. If something changes, it is only cosmetic."

Ferragut adds that many of the Cubans arriving in the United States today do not leave because of Castro or Communism. Their decision is based on economic, rather than political, motives.

Before Harry Reinier left Cuba this spring, he worked in a bakery kneading dough for ten hours a day and $12 a week. His mother had fled Cuba years earlier for Peru. She sent him money when she could so that he might be able to leave as well.

When a friend told Harry about a planned escape to Mexico, Harry emptied his savings and paid $500 to secure a seat on the boat. It was blind faith; he never met the men in charge of the trip.

"Everyone wants to leave Cuba," Harry says. "When there is money, and there is a chance, that's when they leave."
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Rey Rodriguez left Cuba on a calling from God. But when Mexican authorities busted him with false documents nearly four years later, Rey had only one option: head north for the Texas border.

In Cuba, Rey had been a professional photographer, living in a provincial town in eastern Cuba. He suddenly felt the urge to enter the priesthood, but couldn't find much support for seminarians in Castro's Cuba. He was able to secure a visa to Mexico to further his studies. Then Rey fell in love with a Mexican girl during a religious retreat and got her pregnant. Rey abandoned the seminary, and the couple decided to marry and start a family in Morelia, a colonial city in central Mexico.

When Rey applied for Mexican residency at an immigration office, authorities told him he had 72 hours to leave the country or risk deportation. Instead of leaving, Rey purchased false documents that identified him as a Mexican citizen. He destroyed all of his personal belongings that identified or even mentioned his Cuban nationality.

Rey also worked to change his accent, his mannerisms and his word choice. It wasn't easy, because switching between Cuban and Mexican Spanish is like changing a Texas twang to an Irish brogue.

His scheme worked for a while. Rey married his girlfriend, their child was born and he found part-time work at a Ford dealership. With his brown skin and straight black hair, Rey passed as a Mexican for three years.

Finally, Mexican immigration officials caught and detained him. They let him go after issuing a document stating his name and nationality.

"It was just a plain piece of paper with a stamp, but it was the only identification I had left," Rey says. "The paper said that I had 30 days of parole in Mexico before I would be ordered out of the country."

Rey decided to bolt for the Texas border, where he heard that he could pass into the United States legally. After a full day on a bus from Morelia to Matamoros, Rey found the border crossing. Fearing he would be caught and sent back to Cuba, his hands trembled as he approached the gate to the international bridge.

Rey fumbled in his pockets for change at the turnstile. He only had a ten-peso piece, the wrong coin. He tried to stuff the peso into the slot but it wouldn't fit. A Mexican guard approached, armed with an automatic rifle.

"Mexico is so corrupt," Rey says. "You're constantly having to pay bribes to get anything done. I thought I would have to pay another bribe to get across."

To Rey's surprise, the guard offered up the correct change. Rey strolled across the bridge and came to a line of people curling out of the U.S. customs office. He started talking to others, telling his story.

The Mexicans were surprised that a Cuban would wait in such a long line. They told him that he could simply walk up to a window inside the office, declare his nationality and claim political asylum. Rey did, and hours later, he walked into Texas.

In December, after months of floundering at the border, including a botched trip to New Orleans to find work, Rey moved to Houston. He lives with another Cuban, Silvino, he met while living near the border. The men, along with another Cuban Silvino met in a Mexican prison, live in a one-bedroom apartment in southwest Houston.

Rey is optimistic about his job prospects now that he's out of the Valley and into the big city, but he misses his wife and two children, who are Mexican citizens and still living in Mexico. He's thought about trying to persuade his family to sneak across the border, but says he's going to wait until he has the money to bring them here legally.

Stories like Rey's have some anti-­immigration groups fuming. The Federation for American Immigration Reform supports ending all preferential treatment of Cubans. Ira Mehlman, a representative of the group, says the U.S. Cuban policy encourages all kinds of illegal immigrants — including potential terrorists — to seek asylum.

"It's a vestige of a Cold War-era policy that didn't make sense even during the Cold War. Castro has always been happy to export his political dissidents here to yell and scream," Mehlman says. "Cubans should be treated exactly like everyone else. No better and no worse."

Even some Cuban-Americans are questioning the legitimacy of asylum claims by "dusty foot" Cubans. Grisel Ybarra, an immigration attorney in Miami who fled Cuba in 1962, thinks the Cuban Adjustment Act shouldn't apply in Texas. She thinks that the vast majority of Cubans are seeking better-paying jobs, not political freedom.

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