U.S. to Admit Cubans From Guantanamo : Immigration: Most of the 21,000 refugees will be allowed in, but White House says others who flee Castro in future will be forcibly returned. Decision breaks 8-month-old vow.

Abandoning an 8-month-old promise, the Clinton Administration said Tuesday that it will permit the immigration of most of the 21,000 Cuban refugees still held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but will forcibly repatriate all who flee the island from now on.

Officials, who last summer insisted that they never would permit such a mass entry, said that the reversal was forced by the $1-million-a-day cost of the internment and the threat that the young men who remain in the camps could turn to violence as summer approaches.

They said that their goal now is to convince Cubans that their best chance for exit is to remain in Cuba and apply for legal entry under a newly revised agreement with the government of Fidel Castro. Rather than repeating last summer’s exodus, when 35,000 people launched rafts and small boats on the high seas, “Cubans must know that the only way of coming to the United States is applying in Cuba,” Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said at a White House briefing.

Under the agreement, Cuban refugees will be returned to Havana and met on the docks by officials from the U.S. Interests Section. The Castro regime has promised that applicants will not suffer reprisals or lose benefits because they have applied to emigrate, Reno said.

She said that the latest batch of Guantanamo refugees will be counted toward a new annual quota of Cuban refugees that was raised to 20,000 last September. Thus, their entry would not represent a net increase in the immigrant flow, she said. Reno did not explain whether the Cubans at Guantanamo would be admitted over more than one year.

The Administration appeared to be hoping that it could maintain the credibility of its immigration policy by coupling its lenient treatment of remaining refugees with a stricter policy on refugee repatriation, analysts said. Because of this nation’s 35-year-old opposition to the Castro regime, U.S. policy has always been especially lenient to Cuban refugees.

But it was immediately clear that the new policy on forced repatriation would be implemented only over the vigorous objection of the politically powerful Cuban American community.

In Miami, hard-line Cuban American leader Jorge Mas Canosa called the new arrangement “totally worthless,” as WCMQ radio talk-show host Tomas Garcia Fuste called it “another Bay of Pigs for Cubans.” At the same time, Cuban Americans in Florida rejoiced over the impending release of the detainees, who include many of their relatives.

In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) joined other Republicans in denouncing the “secret deal” with Castro and called for swift congressional hearings. Dole said that he doubts Americans could protect would-be refugees from reprisals from the Cuban government, adding: “I don’t think we would have forced people over the Berlin Wall.”

The new policy divided the Administration as well. Dennis Hays, State Department coordinator for Cuban affairs, and his deputy, Nancy Mason, asked to be reassigned because of the change. Hays has advocated a hard line against the Castro regime and has opposed all cooperation.

They “felt this was not a policy they could support,” said a spokesman.

One Florida congressional aide said that whether the policy can stand up against Cuban American pressure “is the $64,000 question.” But he speculated that the White House may have thought Cuban American opposition preferable to the prospect of another major ocean-borne exodus, particularly with an election year ahead.

Officials said that chances of another boat lift with improving weather this spring was another reason for the Administration’s move. Already, Coast Guard officials have noticed some increase in the flow of refugees.

U.S. officials have been releasing the infirm, elderly, children and their parents from the camp. About 6,000 who are there now have been cleared for emigration to the United States and are leaving at a rate of about 500 a week.

Officials said that a few of the remaining internees--including those with known prison records--probably would be returned to Cuba.

Caring for the camps has been a laborious, politically sensitive and expensive process that the military has been eager to shed.

Marine Corps. Gen. John Sheehan, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Command, said that the military was facing the need to spend another $100 million to make the temporary encampments permanent. And after two “civil disturbances” in Guantanamo already, and a third in the now-closed camp in Panama, “there was a distinct possibility” of more ahead, Sheehan said.

About 6,000 U.S. troops have been required to guard the camps and several dozen have been hurt in the outbreaks.

Sheehan said that removal of the last refugees would take about 30 weeks and described the prospect of closing the camps as “a welcome relief.” The savings would be returned to an already tight military budget, he added.

The Administration’s shift on Guantanamo clearly will increase the immigration burden on Florida. Reno, who is a former Dade County prosecutor, said that Florida “will certainly be a place where many of them seek to reside.”

Though Republican and even some Democratic members of Congress criticized the move, the Administration won the support of Gov. Lawton Chiles, and Sen. Bob Graham, two Florida Democrats who have loudly complained in the past about the burden caused by immigration on state services.

But Graham asserted that the Administration should try to resettle the Cubans outside Florida “to the extent possible.” And he said that Clinton had promised to cover the state’s extra costs.

In its plan to immediately return fleeing Cubans, the Administration is relying on the June, 1994, Supreme Court ruling that repatriating refugees picked up outside the territorial limits does not break the law or any treaty. And because of U.S. plans to help the refugees apply for emigration, “we really feel we’re going beyond our international obligations,” said one U.S. official.

Although the policy broke the Administration’s promises from last summer, the Cuban American community and many outside experts had expected that the Guantanamo refugees ultimately would be allowed entry.

The United States could not house them indefinitely at the base and sending them back to Cuba would prompt a political outcry, said Thomas Carothers, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington.

“It was a matter of waiting for things to cool down,” he said. “Immigration policy always involves a clash of idealism and realism.”

At Guantanamo itself, there was predictable joy.

In phone calls from the U.S. naval base, camp residents told Fuste over the air that spontaneous celebrations had broken out.

“They are happy, dancing, there are fiestas in each camp,” said Fuste.

The Clinton Administration decision was lauded by more liberal Cuban Americans. Eddie Levy, for example, who heads a group called the Cuban American Defense league, called the policy change “the right step” in an effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba.

Richter, a Times staff writer, reported from Washington. Clary, a special correspondent, reported from Miami.