MIAMI HERALD
IMMIGRATION
Posted on Sat, Jul. 28, 200
Family divided at U.S. border reunited in
Miami
A Cuban man has an emotional airport
reunion after his Venezuelan-born wife and children are released
from a Texas immigration detention center.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
AL DIAZ/MIAMI HERALD
STAFF
Ocdalis Gomez, 22, and her
children Abel, 2, and Winnelis, 6, arrive at Miami
International Airport. They were detained in Texas after
being stopped at the border coming over from Mexico.
Gomez's husband Abel Gomez was allowed in because he is
a Cuban refugee. Ocdalis and her children were not
because they are Venezuelan.
Immigration authorities Friday
abruptly released the Venezuelan-born wife and children of a Cuban
refugee who was paroled into the country on the same day his family
was put in deportation proceedings at the Texas-Mexico border.
An emotional Ocdalis Gómez, 22, and
her children Abel, 2, and Winnelis, 6, immediately boarded a plane
in Austin, Texas, bound for Miami, where they rejoined Abel Gómez,
30 -- the Cuban migrant who for weeks desperately tried to gain
freedom for his family.
When Abel and Ocdalis reunited at
Miami International Airport, the husband and wife held each other
tightly for a few seconds while their children stared in awe at the
television cameras trained on the family. Then Abel Gómez picked up
the children, hugged and kissed them and proudly displayed one on
each arm for the cameras.
''I'm immensely happy,'' he said when
he finally was able to speak, tears rolling down his cheeks.
``Thanks to God, I am now next to my family again.''
The Gómez family showed up June 11 at
a U.S.-Mexico border crossing near McAllen, Texas. As a Cuban, Abel
was paroled into the country under the wet foot/dry foot policy, but
Ocdalis and the children were detained and placed in deportation
proceedings because they were non-Cuban foreign nationals arriving
without papers.
Gómez is among an increasing number
of Cubans arriving through the Mexican border. Figures released last
week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed that 84 percent of
all Cuban migrants last year came through Mexico rather than the
Florida Straits. Cuban arrivals at the Mexican border have increased
year by year amid intensified Coast Guard interdictions in waters
between Cuba and Florida.
With a wide smile on her face,
Ocdalis said Friday she was happy to be with her husband in Miami --
but added she also felt deep sorrow for other foreign families she
came to know at the detention center who were left behind while she
was freed.
''I am extremely happy, of course,''
she told reporters gathered at MIA. ``But I also feel sadness.''
She paused for several seconds and
then burst into tears. ''Some people qualify for bond and release,
but because they don't have money for bond they are deported with
their children,'' Ocdalis said, sobbing as she spoke. ``It's very
hard being there.''
She said detention officials did not
provide adequate medical care for her son. She said he had a
persistent cough and he only got cough syrup. Carl Rusnok, a
spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dallas,
said he ''will look into the matter.'' She said her daughter got
better care when she had an asthma attack.
Ocdalis said she was not sure if her
deportation case is now over. She said officials told her to report
to immigration court in Miami on Aug. 7.
Rusnok said her ''case was reviewed,
and based on the merits of the case it was determined that parole
was warranted.'' Parole would make her eventually eligible for a
green card under the Cuban Adjustment Act as the spouse of a Cuban
citizen.
The Gómez case also has shed light on
a little-known dimension of ongoing Cuban migrant arrivals: the
growing number of mixed Cuban-Venezuelan families fleeing to the
United States from President Hugo Chávez's govermment.
Abel Gómez said his family left Cuba
for Venezuela in the early 1980s largely to escape Fidel Castro's
communism. Gómez was 6 when his parents moved. He settled in eastern
Venezuela, where he drove a vehicle transporting personnel and goods
for a local business. His wife cooked and sold food.
Though Abel became Venezuelan, he
kept his original Cuban birth certificate and presented a Cuban
passport at the border.
The Gómez family began planning the
journey north about a year ago. They boarded a plane to Mexico City
on June 9 and two days later caught a plane to the border at
Reynosa, Mexico. Once there they took a cab to McAllen.
After Gómez was allowed in, his wife
and children were taken to a detention center for undocumented
foreign families at Taylor.
Ocdalis said an immigration official
who previously had told her she would be deported came to see her
Thursday night and announced she was being released.
Asked what she planned to do now,
Ocdalis smiled and said: ``Many things. Above all, plan and dream
again.''
http://www.miamiherald.com/581/story/185299.html