Royal Caribbean Intercepts Cuban Immigrants

The news today is filled with stories about a cruise ship which "rescues" rafters adrift in the Atlantic. What the news reports fail to mention is that the "rafters" were trying to get to Florida. They are probably already back in Cuba pursuant to U.S. immigration policy. Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas cruise ship reportedly "rescued" six people who were floating on a raft near the Bahamas. A passenger on the cruise ship spotted the raft and the ship stopped. As most of the news reports claim, the cruise ship then "rescued" the people on the raft. An employees of a Houston news station FOX 35 employee (Scott Schroeder) was on cruise ship and reported that the raft looked like "it was a group of tires tied together with green burlap and a makeshift sail." The make-shift raft had apparently been at sea for 15 days. The Fox employee says the captain of the ship told the cruise ship passengers that there were seven people on board the raft and one of them died. As tragic as this is, the indignity is that the survivors, probably related in some way to the deceased "rafter," will be deported back to the evil Castro regime in Cuba. If they made it ashore to the U.S. they would one day be raising their children in Miami (God bless them). But if they are "caught" in the water by the U.S. Coast Guard, they will be "deported" / "repatriated" back to Cuba to face, at best, an uncertain future. Perhaps this is a "rescue' in the minds of the happy-go-lucky cruise passengers and the PR people at the cruise lines, but according to the Cubans in the raft seeking freedom in Miami – they undoubtedly feel that they are screwed. Credits: Fox 35 Houston

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