Bishop decries contradiction in policy on Cubans trying to enter U.S.

Published: 2005-10-11

MIAMI (CNS) -- Calling it "inhumane, unjust and ineffective," retired Auxiliary Bishop Agustin A. Roman of Miami has called for the abolishment of the so-called "wet foot/dry foot" policy that applies to Cubans trying to enter the United States. According to the policy, Cubans who touch land in the United States can stay, while those caught at sea are sent back to the island. The Cuban Adjustment Act, passed in the early 1960s and revised in 1996, allows Cubans to apply for residency a year and one day after arriving in the United States. The U.S. government has no repatriation agreement with Cuba's communist government. The bishop's comments were prompted by the Sept. 23 interdiction, carried live on local television stations, of 10 Cuban refugees as they neared the shores of Haulover Beach in a homemade boat. Those "painful images," Bishop Roman wrote in a statement issued Sept. 27, "were a living demonstration of how the cold interpretation of the letter of the law threatens to dehumanize us, when that interpretation is placed above the spirit of a nation whose fundamental law recognizes each person's right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"

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