Family makes epic journey to America (Cubans in 51 Chevy truck/raft)

[Mika]

Family makes epic journey to America

THIRD TIME'S A CHARM FOR CUBAN 'TRUCKONAUT' AND HIS FAMILY
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11196970.htm

The mastermind behind the ''truckonauts,'' whose gutsy voyages to freedom from Cuba aboard 1950s-vintage vehicles failed, has finally made it to Miami.

He did it the hard way. By land.

-

Last week, Grass' third and successful attempt was by land, crossing the U.S. border with Mexico. Still, the ingenious and persistent Grass and his family said they hit some rough terrain.

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Once they reached Texas, they were held by immigration officials for several days in Brownsville, where they asked for political asylum, said their attorney, Wilfredo Allen.
A Department of Homeland Security official said the department doesn't comment on asylum claims.
The Grasses were eventually paroled and allowed to travel to Miami in a van. They arrived over the weekend at the home of Isora's brother, Ruben Garcia.

Despite having failed a LEGAL US immigration application because of a criminal record, he gets to stay in the US because of the USs wet foot/dry foot and the Cuban Adjustment Act.


The USA offers over 20,000 LEGAL immigration visas per year to Cubans (and Bush just announced that the number would increase despite the fact that not all 20,000 were applied for in the last few years). This number is more than any other single country in the world. Its the US interests section in Cuba that does the criminal background check on the applicants.

The US's 'wet foot/ dry foot' policy (that applies to Cubans only) permits Cuban criminals and felons who arrive on US shores by illegal means to remain in the US despite having failed to qualify for a legal US immigration application.

Cubans who leave for the US without a US visa are returned to Cuba (if caught at sea - mainly in smuggler's go-fast boats @ $5,000 per head) by a US/Cuban repatriation agreement. But IF they make it to US soil, no matter who they are or what their criminal backround might be, they get to stay in the US and enjoy perks offered ONLY TO CUBAN IMMIGRANTS (via the US's Cuban Adjustment Act and a variety of other 'Cubans only' perks). Perks like instant work visa, instant green card, instant access to sec 8 taxpayer assisted housing, instant social security, instant welfare, free health care, and more.

These perks are not offered to any other immigrant group, but yet, without the perks offered to Cubans, immigrants still pour into the US from all over the Caribbean and the Latin Americas - many taking greater risks than Cubans to get here.


Get it? There is no such thing as a Cuban illegal immigrant. Plus, they get perks that no other group is offered.

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Pic of the truck:

Luis Grass Rodríguez should get a job with the military designing amphibious assault craft. Pretty impressive, IMHO.

[Mika]

3. He shouldn't be allowed into the US

He failed a legal immigration application. He has a felony criminal record, as discovered during his legal immigration application background investigation done by the US interests section in Cuba.

If he was of any other nationality he would have been turned back forthwith.

The US wet foot/dry foot policy for Cubans actually encourages criminals to enter the US illegally - and be rewarded.

[Egalitariat]

5. Did he rent a helicopter to have that picture made?

Why didn't they just take that helicopter to Key West?

[Mika]

6. That was a US Coast Guard chopper

After the photo was taken the USCG picked them up and repatriated them back to Cuba, as per the US wet foot/dry foot policy proviso that they had no legitimate asylum claim.

[Judi Lynn]

15. They've been a high profile item in Cuba since the truck, right?

Someone posted photos here which appeared in international papers of him, his wife, their friends walking into the American Interests Section in Havana to try to get visas after their first attempt.

[SaveAmerica]

7. come and listen to my story bout a man named Jederico

made him a barco out of un truck anteeko
then one day he was floaten out to sea,
next thing you know he is legal in miami,
criminal, instant bennies
the cuban hillbillies

(I've got too much time on my hands and it's ticken away...)

[Judi Lynn]

14. You're good! Can't believe you also included the Cuban Adjustment Act

in such a short "ditty!" Smoooth!

[Triana]

2. Cubans, Mexicans...

...somebody has to wipe TS's brain-dead rear end. ;)

[Demit]

4. Charming.

[Triana]

10. yea, crude joke...

...sorry about that. All this bu$hit is just making me :crazy:

apologies for the uncharming comment.

[Demit]

11. you are forgiven :) these are crazy-making times

[Judi Lynn]

13. And his dad's, and brother's.

The family has been totally connected with the CIA-trained terrorists among the Cuban "exiles" since before the Bay of Pigs.

The same pool which produced the Watergate burglars.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. I wonder

If one emigrates TO Cuba, becomes a citizen there and THEN sets foot in the USA, does one get to stay? :silly:

[Judi Lynn]

12. I'll bet it'd work! I've wondered why terrorists haven't figured that out!

It'd be a snap!

[noonwitch]

9. I'm impressed with the guy's engineering ability

If he has a felony record of real criminal behavior (as opposed to perhaps being incarcerated for being anti-castro), he shouldn't get to stay here.

But he is clever with the car-boat things.

[daleo]

16. No mention of what the felony was?

(I didn't want to register).

It would be an interesting fact.

[Judi Lynn]

17. There's something in this article the Miami Herald didn't illuminate!

This is at the end of the article, describing his last trip back to Cuba, after having been sent back two previous times by the United States, when he was caught in the water before he made it to dry land:

In Cuba, Grass said his life became difficult as the government labeled him a troublemaker.

Enter a broken-down '59 Buick he owned. Making it float was easy; he had experience. His family and a group of nine others set out in February 2004.

That trip, too, ended when the U.S. Coast Guard found them. But this time a Miami federal judge stepped in, ordering the Grass family sent to the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, where they waited for asylum. Grass proved he had ''credible fear'' of persecution if returned to Cuba.

In December, the U.S. government and Costa Rica struck a deal, allowing the Grass family and a dozen others to go to live in San Jose.

The family was given $450 a month to live, but their rent alone was $325, Isora said. ''Life was hard,'' she said.

Grass said his goal had always been to make it to the United States, so he began planning their land trip.

He plans to find work -- and buy a car.

''There are so many kinds here,'' he said.
(snip)

No kidding, there are "so many kinds here," and without our knowing we had been paying $450.00 per month to house them in goddamned COSTA RICA before they made it back to the U.S. I would imagine $450.00 would go a fair distance in that country, per month.

The BIG question is WHY? I've heard of this before, so this is apparently a pattern they've never lowered themselves to explain to us, the lowly taxpayers.

Another thing, according to the story,

The couple, carrying their 5-year-old son Angel Luis, said they spent 24 days making their way on foot, hitchhiking, on taxi and buses across the borders of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

Sometimes they struggled through jungles where they encountered snakes, monkeys and every ''insect possible'' -- all to avoid detection as they traveled without legal papers.

''This last trip was the scariest,'' Isora said. ''We kept a positive attitude,'' her husband added.

HARD CONDITIONS

Money was short and some nights they slept in the open. Milk for their boy was hard to come by during the journey, which the trio started Feb. 16 in San Jose, Costa Rica, and ended March 12 by crossing into the United States at Matamoros, Mexico.
(snip)

Do these people looks as if they've been dragging around, retracing the same steps which end, all to often, in death in the desert crossing from Mexico for over 400 people YEARLY?

They love a good yarn in Miami, with the help of special funding for the actors.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Earlier story from the Herald written after their first return....

....'Truckonauts' await U.S. ruling
The inventive Cubans whose political asylum claims were initially denied by U.S. officials are told to resubmit their paperwork.
BY TERE FIGUERAS
[e-mail]

The truckboat saga chugs on.

Seven months after a group of Cubans boarded a customized '51 Chevy pickup and headed out to sea, only to be returned by the U.S. Coast Guard days later, the remaining camionautas -- or ''truckonauts'' -- have yet another chance at freedom.

Friday, eight of the Cubans whose political asylum claims were denied by U.S. officials were summoned once again to resubmit their paperwork, according to family members and reports from the island.

A ninth truckonaut, Ariel Diego Marcell -- whose asylum application is still being processed -- fainted on the steps of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana after showing up for interviews.

''He just passed out from nerves,'' said Ruben Garcia of Miami, a relative of several of the Cubans who left the Havana coast aboard the battered, diesel-powered Chevy.
(snip)

After a five-hour interview, interrupted by the fainting spell that sent him briefly to the hospital, Diego's status was still uncertain.

''I'm going home to wait. I feel like my wings have fallen off my body,'' he said Friday.
(snip)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/8061989.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Truckonauts! Catchy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The car boat!

More on Luis Grass, the driver, creator of the two vehicles:

Luis Grass, 30, a master mechanic dubbed a ''truckonaut'' for his conversions of the classic vehicles into seaworthy escape vessels, was among the 20 migrants taken from the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay to Costa Rica on Wednesday.

He and his family -- wife Isora and 5-year-old son Luis Angel -- had been detained at Guantánamo since their second attempt to flee last February.

Although Grass' efforts weren't successful, they generated international headlines when photographs of the migrants on their land/sea contraption surfaced.

Now, freedom might not be the only reward for Grass. Fame and fortune may be in his future, too.

U.S. and British filmmakers have approached Grass' Miami attorney about purchasing the rights to his life story.
(snip/...)

http://www.democracia.org/truckonauts.htm