Judge Orders Legal Advice for Cubans : Immigration: Detained rafters must have a chance to talk with a lawyer before repatriation, ruling says. Action thwarts plans to thin out tent cities.

Some 32,000 Cuban rafters being held in detention camps cannot be returned to Cuba, even if they volunteer to go, until they have had a chance to consult with lawyers about the possible consequences of their decision, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge C. Clyde Atkins issued a temporary restraining order barring the further repatriation of any Cubans being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The order thwarts both the Clinton Administration’s hopes of reducing the population of the internment camps and the desires of at least 1,000 refugees who have said that they want to go home.

The Cubans were picked up in the Florida Straits, most clinging to flimsy rafts, after Cuban President Fidel Castro dropped his ban on leaving the island. Then the Clinton Administration reversed 30 years of preferential treatment and declared in mid-August that no Cubans would be permitted to enter the United States except through normal immigration channels.

Atkins’ order comes in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the refugees by a group of 24 Miami attorneys, most of them Cuban Americans, who contended that the government is using harsh conditions at Guantanamo to coerce the Cubans into choosing repatriation.

“We are absolutely thrilled,” said Roberto Martinez, a former U.S. attorney acting as lead counsel for the refugees. “This is a significant step to getting these people the right to make application for refugee status.”

Added attorney Marcos Jimenez: “They are making a life-changing decision when they go back to Castro, and they should talk to a lawyer before they do that.”

About 23,000 Cubans remain in Guantanamo; another 8,000 have volunteered to be transferred to a camp in Panama. Forty-two Cubans from Guantanamo have been voluntarily repatriated through Havana, while several others have returned on their own by jumping barbed-wire fences and crossing a minefield or swimming into Cuban territory.

In his 14-page ruling, Atkins did not address conditions in the camps. But Guarione M. Diaz, appointed civilian ombudsman to represent the Guantanamo Cubans, said that indefinite detention and a lack of adequate medical care have led to widespread anxiety and depression in the camps.

“They are uneasy,” said Diaz. “They are uncertain about the future. Those who want to go back to Cuba don’t know when they can go. And those who want to come to the United States don’t know if they will ever get here.”

Diaz said that several Guantanamo Cubans are protesting their indefinite detention with a hunger strike. Several peaceful demonstrations have taken place, and last week about 20 camp residents tried to escape by swimming into Cuban territory. A few made it, he said.

Diaz said that a lack of medicine and doctors “is more urgent than ever,” particularly in the cases of detainees who are epileptic, disabled, pregnant or have tested positive for the AIDS virus.

In arguments before Atkins last week, lawyers for the Justice Department asserted that the Guantanamo refugees, like Haitian refugees interdicted at sea, have no rights under the U.S. Constitution--a claim upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1993 ruling.

Lawyers for the Cubans said the refugees do have constitutional rights, since Guantanamo, by virtue of a 1903 lease, is under U.S. control. Atkins agreed.

Last week Atkins issued an emergency order that stopped the government from flying 23 Cubans from Guantanamo to Havana at the last minute. Three days later Diaz faxed to Atkins a handwritten letter, signed by 21 of the 23 refugees, protesting the judge’s order. Insisting that their decision to go home was voluntary and not coerced, the signers said: “There is nothing in this world that will make us change our minds.”

Government lawyers further stated that some of the 23 Cubans were so despondent about being kept from going home that at least two “fell to the ground weeping” and one threatened to kill himself.

The government also defended camp conditions, saying that the “migrants receive at least one hot meal a day (and) continental breakfasts are served.”

“Far from the picture of squalor and chaos that plaintiffs try to paint, there is in fact a daily routine available to adults and children alike, which includes education, recreation and entertainment,” government lawyers said.

Within days, lawyers for the Cubans are to submit their plan for interviewing and advising the 23,000 refugees at Guantanamo.