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Post-Castro exodus is a concern for U.S.
Officials say mass migration from Cuba isn't likely, but they're getting prepared

By SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Possible mass migration
Concentrations of Cubans in the U.S. FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — U.S. homeland security officials say they are preparing for a remote, but real possibility: that the death of Fidel Castro could trigger a mass migration from the island nation, landing refugees in detention centers in Florida, Texas and beyond.

At least that's one of several worst-case scenarios that federal officials weighed Tuesday at the start of a simulated exercise aimed at gauging the ability of the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to respond to a potential rafter crisis.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. David W. Kunkel, director of the Homeland Security Task Force Southeast, which led the two-day exercise, stressed that the U.S. government is not predicting that Castro's death will destabilize Cuba and spark a massive wave of migration. But, he said, ''We don't want to be caught flat-footed."

A federal plan to contain a possible exodus from Cuba has been under review for 18 months and will need final approval from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. On Tuesday, federal officials declined to disclose many details of the plan, but said they are confident it will curb a wave of migration.

Some state and local officials said they hope that's true, but if migrants get past the first line of defense, they worry that Florida could see a repeat of the Mariel Boatlift, a chaotic exodus from Cuba in 1980 that brought 125,000 Cubans to the U.S., most to Florida's shores.

Robert Palestrant, acting director of the Office of Emergency Management in Miami-Dade County, said the county has the capacity to hold as many as 78,000 people in the case of a hurricane, but that involves closing down schools and using them for shelter. Faced with large numbers, he said, the federal government would have to step in and send migrants to other parts of the country.

"We can't take on another Mariel," he said.

Though officials with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency would not discuss their procedures for "emergency migration," sources who have reviewed the plan said it involves sending Cuban migrants to detention centers across the country if resources in South Florida are exhausted.

The plan could have implications for Texas, which is home to the nation's fifth-largest population of Cuban descent. The state is also a major player in the for-profit immigration-detention-center business. Earlier this year, KBR, a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton, was awarded a $385 million contract from Homeland Security, or DHS, in the event of an "emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S."

But Coast Guard officials say they are confident it won't come to that. The agency is dealing with an aging fleet and an increasing number of illegal immigrants coming through the Caribbean, according to the Government Accountability Office. The Coast Guard plan calls for deploying vessels at the first signs of a mass migration, with the support of the Department of Defense, if necessary.


Strategy draws doubts
Andy Gomez, a senior fellow with the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, who has sat in on closed-door meetings with DHS and state and local police, doesn't think the government is ready to deal with the possible fallout from Castro's death after nearly 48 years of rule. He said surveys by the institute put the number of people wanting to leave the island at about 500,000.

"I know there are contingency plans, but I think the biggest issue that worries the U.S. is large-scale immigration," he said.

"We do not have enough housing, and we need better education and health services," Gomez said. "We just don't have enough infrastructure to absorb that large of a number of people."

U.S. officials are also preparing for boats heading from Florida to Cuba, which would be prohibited by law at a time of crisis. Ramon Saul Sanchez, a 42-year-old Cuban exile, vows that after Castro dies, he and other members of the Democracy Movement will take their vessels and flotillas into the Atlantic and head for Cuba, regardless of warnings by DHS and the Defense Department.

"If they try to prevent us from exercising our peaceful right to return to our homeland and to help the Cuban people at a crucial moment, we will call for civil disobedience," he said.

In South Florida, humanitarian officials said the schools and hospitals are ramping up.

Castro, 80, underwent intestinal surgery for an unknown ailment in July. He has scarcely been seen since then, and some U.S. officials think he is battling terminal cancer.

At the exercise Tuesday, unconfirmed rumors of Castro's death circulated through the crowd.

"Are we ready? Kind of," said Marielena Villamil, chair of the South Florida Humanitarian Network for Cuba, a group of nonprofit and government agencies preparing for the post-Castro era.

"We're just waiting to see what happens," she said, "and praying to God that things don't get out of hand."

Quelle:http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4398321.html

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