Cubans who landed on piling sent back

MIAMI — Fifteen Cubans who fled their homeland and landed on an abandoned bridge piling in the Florida Keys were returned to their homeland Monday after U.S. officials concluded the structure did not constitute dry land.

Under the U.S. government's "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach dry land in the United States are usually allowed to remain in this country, while those caught at sea are sent back.

The Cubans — including a 2-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy — had left Matanzas Province in Cuba Jan. 2 aboard a small, homemade boat. The Coast Guard rescued them from the base of the bridge just south of Marathon Key and held them aboard a Coast Guard cutter while they awaited a final decision on their status.

The Cubans thought they were safe Wednesday when they reached the Old Seven Mile Bridge. But the historic bridge, which runs side by side with a newer bridge, is missing several chunks, and the Cubans had the misfortune of reaching pilings from a section that no longer touches land.

Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil said officials in Washington determined the Cubans should be considered "feet wet," because they were not able to walk to land.

At least a dozen Cuban Americans protested the decision Monday outside the Coast Guard headquarters in Miami Beach. Last year, the Coast Guard interdicted almost twice as many Cubans at sea as 2004 — more than any year since 1994, when a rafter crisis of 37,000 prompted the United States and Cuba to implement the controversial new immigration policy.

The Coast Guard interdicted 2,866 Cubans at sea in 2005, up from 1,499 in 2004. Florida said 2,530 Cubans were detained there in 2005, up from 955 the year before.

Indictment says couple illegal foreign agents

MIAMI — A Miami college professor and his wife have been indicted for being illegal foreign agents and passing on nonclassified information to Cuba.

Florida International University education professor Carlos Álvarez, 61, and his wife Elsa, 55, were ordered held without bond Monday after U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton sided with a federal prosecutor's argument that the couple would leave their five children and flee to Cuba if granted bail.

The couple did not enter pleas in Miami federal court to the charge they failed to register themselves as "agents of a foreign government" with the U.S. Attorney General's Office.

The Álvarezes were not charged with the more serious count of espionage, but the indictment says they were trained and equipped by Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence agency and recruited "young people of Cuban heritage" in the United States to be spies.

The charge carries up to a 10-year prison sentence and $250,000 fine.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel