Detained Cuban migrants denied visit by ‘friends’ seeking re-union

Franz Manderson,
Chief Immigration Officer

Alex Matos came to visit Cuban migrants detained in
jail.

Monday,  August 1, 2005

A Cuban national who now resides in Puerto Rico came to the Cayman Islands to visit two friends in Northward Prison, where they are being detained as illegal migrants.

Alex Matos said that he came to visit brothers Reniel Perez and Yosvanie Falcon, men who he had been brought up with and thought of as brothers, he said.

His friends arrived by small boat on Grand Cayman 12 July with a married couple, having left Cuba on 3 July.

However, the request to visit them in jail was turned down, largely because the woman that Mr Matos was traveling with refused to give her name to Immigration officers.

The young woman said that she was Mr Matos’ girlfriend, but that she was afraid of the consequences back home in Puerto Rico if it was known she helped with this issue.

The Immigration Department did not buy the story and the jail visit was denied.

Chief Immigration Officer Franz Manderson explained that the senior officer who interviewed them on Monday, 25 July, was not satisfied that this was a genuine visit. They said they wanted to see the two Cuban migrants to organize a boat for the brothers to leave the Cayman Islands. This would not be considered, he said.

Mr Manderson noted that refusing to give your name to an Immigration official is against the law, but more importantly, he had grave reservations about letting someone who refused to give her name into one of the Cayman Islands’ secure facilities.

He said that they also had a duty to ensure that the rights of those people in short-term protection are respected, too.

“We cannot start discussing their cases with someone whose background we don’t know,” he pointed out.

When this particular group of four migrants arrived on Grand Cayman, they were initially transported by ambulance because the woman was sick and dehydrated.

Mr Matos said that one of his friends gave a telephone number of relatives in Cuba to a Columbian construction worker. This man contacted their Cuban family, who subsequently called Mr Matos in Puerto Rico.

The construction worker also told them that he and some Jamaican workers had wanted to help the Cubans by giving them food and water, but that the officers had told them that, if they did, they would be arrested, according to Mr Matos.

He and his Puerto Rican girlfriend arrived Friday 22 July in the afternoon, and went straight to Northward prison to see his brothers, and also tried to visit them on Sunday, they said. However, he was told that he would need special permission from the Immigration Department.

Initially, they were interviewed by Senior Immigration Officer Gary Watler, who refused permission for them to visit the pair in Northward.

The next day – Tuesday - they went to the Immigration Department again and asked to see Chief Immigration Officer Franz Manderson, but this was denied, they said.

Mr Matos said that the brothers had applied for political asylum. However, when interviewed for Headline Report for CiNTV, Cayman Net News’ video streaming programme, he admitted that the main reason for their attempt to leave Cuba was economic.

Mr Matos said that he had called some lawyers in the Cayman Islands but that he was quoted a cost of $500 per hour – a figure he could not possibly afford.

When he last saw his brothers, they talked about leaving Cuba, but he was not aware that they were planning to take such a drastic step as to leave by boat, he said.

In order to qualify for political asylum, under the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, a person must prove that they would be persecuted if they returned to their country of origin.

People who enter a country illegally because they are looking for a better life are referred to as economic migrants and are generally returned.

Mr Manderson said that obviously, the Cubans do not want to go back, but he pointed out that many people ask for an extension to the right to stay in the Cayman Islands, and this was entirely different to requesting political asylum.

They do not advise migrants of their right to request political asylum. He said that people genuinely in fear of their safety would give indication of this to the Immigration officers.

“We have a duty to look at each case individually and make a decision based on each case that we have,” he said.

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