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

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Marisela and her husband bought fake passports and attempted to fly out of the country. But Venezuelan immigration officials busted them and confiscated the passports. Then Marisela tried paying a man who said he had a contact in the U.S. Embassy and could provide a visa for the right price. That plan failed as well.

After losing money a second time, the couple remained in Venezuela until they managed to obtain a legal visa to visit Mexico. After eight years, the couple, along with their young son, took a flight to Reynosa, Mexico, a border town across from McAllen, and entered the United States.

That was in 2000, when the trend of Cubans crossing the Texas border was about as unique as Mexicans floating to Miami. Customs officials were not versed in Cuban policy, Marisela says, and her family was told to return to Mexico

"We would rather go to jail than go back," Marisela says, "so we made up a story."

Marisela and her husband told customs officers that they had taken a boat from Cuba to Mexico, and that they had paid smugglers to transport them to the U.S. border. Marisela pleaded that she could not return to Mexico because she feared for her life.

Customs officials took Marisela and her husband to a detention facility where they waited for an immigration hearing. After ten days, they were released, and Marisela's aunt and uncle brought the family to Houston.

Prior to 2005, all Cubans were held at detention facilities for weeks at a time until they could be processed, according to Felix Garza, an agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. But as spots at the detention facilities started to fill up, and the trickle of Cubans along the border turned into a tide, the Department of Homeland Security changed the policy to allow for almost immediate parole.

Still, some Cubans are detained.

"Once we begin the processing, we do have the authority to make an arrest," says Garza, who oversees border crossings from Del Rio to Brownsville. Garza says that a Cuban could be detained if he is determined to be sick or mentally ill or to have a criminal record.

"The policy on that kind of shifts from day to day," says Jodie Goodwin, an attorney in Harlingen. Goodwin has practiced immigration law along the Texas border for more than a decade and has seen the Cuban boom firsthand. She has represented a number of Cubans detained at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos.

"They're not stupid," she says. "They know they're probably not going to die crossing the bridge in Texas, where who knows floating the 90 miles to Miami."

One of the Cubans that Goodwin currently represents was detained because he entered the country by swimming the river. When the man made it across, he flagged down a Border Patrol truck and turned himself in.

"I can't figure out why a Cuban would swim the river...but I've actually seen a number of these cases," Goodwin says. "He knew about the policy, he just didn't know about the bridge."

While in detention, Cubans must wait to go before an immigration judge and defend their claims of political asylum. At the Port Isabel center, where Brownsville detainees are taken, that means facing Judge Howard E. Achtsam.

"If you're unfortunate enough to get Judge Achtsam, that means you're probably going to get denied," Goodwin says. "I think he has got to be the only immigration judge in the country that routinely denies asylum for Cubans."

Achtsam, who has served as an immigration judge since 1986, could not be reached for comment. A representative with the U.S. Department of Justice says federal immigration judges do not answer questions from the press. But statistics reveal that in the last two years, every Cuban that has passed through Port Isabel has been denied asylum.

Goodwin's client who swam the river has been detained for four months. The man is still waiting for his asylum hearing. But Achtsam already turned down the man's request for bond. In recent months, the docket at Port Isabel has been so packed that an immigration judge in Washington, D.C., has started hearing cases via video conference. Goodwin is optimistic that her client will not have to face Achtsam again.

"He's going to get another judge, and probably going to get his asylum," she says.

But even if a Cuban is denied political asylum, it means little more than an extended stay at the detention facility. Goodwin says that if the asylum is denied again during appeal, policy requires a final review within 90 days. That review usually results in release from detention, only without asylee status.

At that point, however, the Cuban will usually have been in the country for one year, the period of time necessary to qualify for a green card.

"They can't send them back to Cuba. It basically means a lot of wasting of government resources and a lot of wasting of private resources," Goodwin says. "It's all a game. The ultimate end for all Cubans is just to get here and stay."

On a sunny morning in November, a group of Cuban women huddled in the corner of a waiting room at the customs office in Brownsville. Two of the women had dyed their hair a bronzy-blond. Another wore a pair of bright pink Nike Shocks.

Outside, a line of immigrants from other countries waiting to cross the border stretched out of the building and onto the international bridge.

The women, along with two Cuban men, had arrived at the border at midnight and were waiting for a turn in the processing room to be interviewed by an officer with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Cubans are asked a series of questions to determine whether they should be allowed to enter. The interviews take several hours, and unless they are detained, Cubans are given their one-year parole papers the same day they arrive.

While the women wait, customs officers interrogate two Cuban men who arrived with the women. Unlike Rey and Harry, it's clear that their trip has been immaculately planned and well financed.

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