U.S. Admits Eight Shipwrecked Cubans From Mexico : Immigration: The case contrasts with American pressure to deport 600 Chinese intercepted off Baja California.

In a case that many say highlights double standards in both Mexican and U.S. immigration policies, eight Cubans shipwrecked last month off Mexico’s Caribbean coast and initially sent back to Cuba were granted permission Wednesday to enter the United States.

The Cubans are being allowed in from Mexico on “humanitarian” grounds six weeks after Mexican authorities, bowing to pressure from Washington, summarily deported more than 600 U.S.-bound Chinese whose ships were intercepted off Baja California.

Mexican officials have also routinely expelled Central Americans who have fled their homelands, but the Cuban case became an international cause celebre and foreign policy quandary that forced Mexico City into an embarrassing about-face.

Mexican authorities took the extraordinary step Sunday of intervening with the Cuban government and bringing the eight deportees back to Mexico. That action opened the way for the Cuban exile lobby in the United States to pressure Washington to let them in.

“We’re overwhelmed with joy,” said a sobbing Catalina Gamez, a 48-year-old Cuban housewife who was rescued along with her husband and two teen-age children. “Once they sent us back to Cuba, I never thought we’d have another chance.”

Mexican authorities were excoriated--both here and by Cuban-Americans--for deporting the eight Cubans on Aug. 19, after fishermen plucked them from the sea following their harrowing two-week journey. The travelers had expected their voyage to end in Florida. Seven fellow passengers perished when the boat, swept off course, capsized off the coast of Mexico’s Quintana Roo state.

Critics on both the left and the right accused Mexico of cynically discarding its venerable tradition of welcoming political dissidents so as not to offend Cuban President Fidel Castro, himself a onetime exile here. Mexican authorities have long maintained cordial relations with the Cuban government.

Apart from the political ramifications, Mexican leaders are anxious that their nation not be viewed as a convenient “trampoline” for waves of U.S.-bound Cubans. In fact, Mexico has expelled scores of illegal Cuban immigrants in the past two years and has also greatly restricted the issuance of visitor visas to Cuban nationals.

As the debate about the eight Cubans raged here, an official of Mexico’s Interior Ministry inflamed matters by publicly rejecting the Cubans as mere economic migrants and arguing that Mexico could not accept “the garbage” of other nations.

The pejorative characterization touched a raw nerve in a nation that annually sends hundreds of thousands of job-seekers to the United States and frequently complains about their treatment in the north.

Meanwhile, Cuban-Americans picketed Mexican consulates in the United States, burned Mexican flags and threatened to launch a campaign against the North American Free Trade Agreement--the cornerstone of Mexico’s economic revival plan.

Faced with the chorus of condemnations, Mexican officials cut a deal with Cuba and flew the eight Cubans from Havana to Mexico City last Sunday.

Once the eight Cubans were back in Mexico, the Cuban American National Foundation--a vehemently anti-Castro group in Miami--began pressing the Clinton Administration to grant the refugee visas.

On Tuesday, U.S. authorities interviewed the eight Cubans here. On Wednesday, Verne Jervis, chief spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said, “They’re free to come in at any time.”

In the United States, critics called the Clinton Administration’s speedy decision in the matter evidence of cruel inconsistencies.

“They’re pulling up the welcome mat for everyone else while extending it all the way to Mexico for Cubans,” said Peter A. Schey, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a refugee advocacy group in Los Angeles.