CARIBBEAN EXODUS: Cubans Picked Up at Sea by U.S. Coast Guard Rises Nearly 75%

The flood gates are opening. What do you think about this increase? Is it good… bad… or ugly?

By Christine Armario – AP

MIAMI (AP) — It was hot and dark and mosquitoes bit at his skin as 23-year-old Jose Fuente Lastre boarded a raft with eight other men, intent on fleeing Cuba.

Their flimsy vessel built from scraps of metal, wood and inner tubes had failed repeatedly. Oil leaked. The propeller sputtered.

“I’m not going,” Lastre had announced. “It seems we weren’t meant to leave.”

“Don’t be a fool,” shot back his stepfather, Antonio Cardenas. “After trying this hard you have to try again.”

Four of their companions decided it was too risky, jumping out and wading back to shore.

Lastre looked at his stepfather’s wrinkled face. They had invested nearly everything they owned to build the raft.

They switched on the motor taken from a Russian tractor-trailer.

Tens of thousands of Cubans have made the harrowing journey on homemade rafts across the Florida Straits, preferring to risk their lives than remain in Cuba.

President Barack Obama’s promise to reverse 53 years of hostility has raised hopes that with normalized relations, Cubans will stop taking these risks. But Obama’s deal with President Raul Castro isn’t expected to stop the tide anytime soon. Obama lacks the votes in Congress to abandon the embargo and the provision allowing almost all Cubans who reach the U.S. to stay is law. This last year, the number of Cubans picked up at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard or making it to U.S. shores rose nearly 75 percent, from 2,129 to 3,722.

Read more: AP