Cuban migrants who climbed lighthouse claim they've been mistreated on Coast Guard cutter

Federal judge orders that migrants found on lighthouse be repatriated to Cuba

MIAMI – A group of Cuban migrants who made it to the American Shoal lighthouse near Sugarloaf Key last month claim they have been mistreated on a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, where they have been staying since May 20.

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the 24 migrants must return to Cuba, because the lighthouse is not considered dry land.

The migrants' attorneys, who are working pro bono upon the request of the Democracy Movement, a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, attended a hearing Thursday in hopes of getting a chance for the migrants to stay.

The attorneys asked Judge Darrin P. Gayle to grant them access to their clients, but Gayle said he could not grant that at this time.

"That's one of the most basic rights that people litigating, fighting in the U.S. courts, are entitled to have," attorney Ben Kuehne said.

According to the migrants' attorneys, a handwritten note from the migrants was found in a bottle by a fisherman.

They said the note claims that one of the women aboard the cutter is ill and that they have all been given food that only animals would eat.

The letter states that the migrants have been sleeping on the floor each night, and they describe living on the cutter like being in hell.

Gayle said the Coast Guard can repatriate the migrants at any time now, but the Coast Guard has not said when it plans to do so.

The migrants were taken into Coast Guard custody May 20 after an eight-hour standoff on the 109-foot-tall lighthouse.

Gayle's 35-page ruling said the lighthouse that the Cuban migrants used as refuge is not dry land, but a "navigational aid."

Gayle also said the attorneys, who filed the injunction in U.S. District Court on May 24 disputing the Cubans' return, were from a group that doesn't have "any standing in this case."

The Democracy Movement has called for an independent investigation after the message in a bottle was found.


About the Authors:

Amanda Batchelor is the Digital Executive Producer for Local10.com.

In January 2017, Hatzel Vela became the first local television journalist in the country to move to Cuba and cover the island from the inside. During his time living and working in Cuba, he covered some of the most significant stories in a post-Fidel Castro Cuba.