Spy Who Seeks Asylum in U.S. to Stay in Jail

A 40-year-old self-proclaimed former double agent for Cuba who now seeks to defect to the United States will remain jailed in San Diego until at least Thursday, a federal judge has decided.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Irving said Saturday that there was no pressing reason why Juan Manuel Rodriguez Camejo, a Cuban citizen, should be ordered released this weekend, as his attorneys had requested.

Judge Irving, who heard telephonic arguments Friday on the case and later reviewed papers submitted on the matter, said that a hearing would likely be scheduled for Thursday in federal court in San Diego.

Rodriguez, who has been held without bond in San Diego since he was arrested along the U.S.-Mexico border Oct. 29, is seeking release on bond pending adjudication of his petition for political asylum on U.S. soil. The asylum application process can drag on for more than a year.

U.S. authorities oppose Rodriguez’s release and his request for asylum, contending that he is a threat to U.S. national security.

In court, U.S. officials have argued that Rodriguez remains a Cuban agent and is seeking asylum as cover for his intelligence activities here. Rodriguez has acknowledged that he worked for more than two decades for Cuban intelligence services, including a seven-year-period when he was on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency payroll in Havana but was actually working against the CIA.

Now, Rodriguez says he has renounced communism and wants to work in the United States to oust Cuban President Fidel Castro, Washington’s longtime adversary. U.S. authorities maintain that Rodriguez’s proclaimed conversion is a ruse, and that he should remain jailed pending the outcome of his asylum case.

An immigration judge ordered Rodriguez freed Thursday on $7,500 bail, apparently paving the way for his release. But, on Friday, U.S. authorities won a stay of that order.