U.S. Asylum for Cubans Won’t Be Automatic

The Reagan Administration announced Monday that it will not regularly grant asylum to freed Cuban political prisoners unless the Castro government reinstates a suspended agreement calling for the return to Cuba of felons and other undesirables who came to the United States in the 1980 Mariel boatlift.

“Former Cuban political prisoners who wish to leave Cuba may seek resettlement in other democratic nations,” State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb said in explaining that they will not automatically be welcome in the United States.

However, Kalb said that some released prisoners, like former Bay of Pigs invasion leader Ricardo Montero Duque, will be permitted to enter the United States under “exceptional circumstances.” He did not say what those circumstances are. Montero was freed Sunday after 25 years in prison after an appeal to Cuban leader Fidel Castro by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

The Cuban government suspended a U.S.-Cuba emigration pact on May 20, 1985, when the United States inaugurated its Radio Marti program, broadcasting news, entertainment and anti-Castro commentary in Spanish to Cuba.

The suspended agreement had called for the United States to accept former Cuban political prisoners and for Cuba to take back the “undesirables” sent to the United States along with bona fide refugees aboard small boats from the port of Mariel.

Kalb said that three former political prisoners, among 17 whose release reportedly had been sought by underseas explorer Jacques Cousteau, recently were refused entry to the United States.