U.S. Creating Panels for Cubans’ Appeals

The Justice Department, in a move that it says fulfills a pledge made to end Cuban prisoner uprisings at Atlanta and Oakdale, La., said Friday it is creating two special panels to review cases in which Cubans are denied parole or ordered deported to their homeland.

Under the plan, the Immigration and Naturalization Service--distrusted by many of the inmates--still will make the initial decision on parole or deportation of Cuban inmates, but the detainees would have a new route of appeal through the panels if they lose.

“We wish to go beyond that which the law requires,” Deputy Atty. Gen. Arnold I. Burns told a press conference.

Makeup of Panels

Panels for reviewing adverse parole decisions will be made up of three Justice Department officials selected by Assistant Atty. Gen. Stephen S. Trott. Of the three, one will be a lawyer and one will be from the department’s Community Relations Service. The panel reviewing “repatriation” rulings will be made up of Trott, William Bradford Reynolds, assistant attorney general for civil rights, and Robert Martinez, director of the Community Relations Service--or their representatives.

The announcement immediately drew fire from an attorney for the Cubans who charged that the new panels will be composed entirely of Justice Department officials, making the Justice Department “judge, jury and executioner.”

Dale Schwartz, an Atlanta attorney who represented the Cubans in an unsuccessful class-action suit challenging their indefinite confinement, also said: “The Cubans were promised due process hearings, and this is not due process. They’re not given oral hearings, there are no standards for review and no provision for what happens to those who are not deported but not released.”

Deportation Accord Cited

The riots in the two institutions occurred after Cuban inmates got word that deportations to Cuba of incarcerated Mariel boat lift refugees were to resume under a recently completed U.S.-Cuba agreement.

About 7,600 of the 125,000 Cubans who entered the United States in 1980 boat lifts from Mariel are now in prisons or detention facilities supervised by federal and state authorities and thus will be affected by the new review process.

Initially, the 3,800 held in federal facilities will be processed under the program, Burns said.

In the most detailed breakdown so far of the crimes linked to the incarcerated Cubans, Burns noted that more than one-fourth of the 2,400 Cubans held at Oakdale and Atlanta were convicted of violent crimes, while another quarter--620--were convicted of dangerous drug offenses. Many of the detainees were not serving time but were being held as undesirable.

Of those with criminal convictions, the “overwhelming number” were for crimes committed after the Cubans came to the United States, Burns said. The violent crimes included 81 for murder, 16 for kidnaping, 56 for sexual assault, 299 for robbery, 201 for assaults and 12 for arson.

Criminal activity is one of the grounds for deportation, but extenuating circumstances will be considered, such as the severity of the offense, prospective employment and ties to the community.

Vows to ‘Do Better’

Burns conceded that in the past, some Cubans approved for release “have been held for some time after that decision was made,” because of a lack of sponsors or halfway houses. Pledging to “do better,” Burns said the department will seek more money and “will work with the Cuban-American community in a collaborative effort to find family and other appropriate sponsors.”

Burns said he did not think the new program constituted an admission that the government could have done more to ease tensions among the Cuban inmates before the riots.

“To say that the world is always perfect is silly,” he said. “To say we did everything humanly possible with the most capable of people to address this thing is not . . . . This is an effort to keep the attorney general’s commitment . . . that each and every one of these people will receive an individualized, fair review.”